A Matter of Pride
by Alex Ryzlin Gold
Summary: With her partner dead at the Evil Queen's hands Agent Red will stop at nothing to make sure the Evil Queen is taken down. Only the stories about the Evil Queen aren't exactly accurate and there is much more to the feud between the Evil Queen and Snow White than meets the eye. Her journey takes her on a trip that makes Ruby question what she knows and who she trusts. Very violent.
1. Chapter 1

**Part One**

_Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth._ - Marcus Aurelius

It had been a hard mission, the one that resulted in Quinn's death. Ruby and Quinn had no choice but to team up with Snow White and Charming. Ruby had never heard stupider call signs. However, Snow and Charming had selected them after their first mission in which they had run into the Evil Queen. It made sense to them, which was all that mattered. Even if it was stupid. It was an equally stupid moniker in Ruby's opinion, but the Evil Queen had coined it first. Right before everyone else, criminals and agents alike, adopted the stupid fairy tale names. It was likely a response to the Evil Queen's ever growing presence in the world. She came in from seemingly nowhere, with a staggering amount of resources that left no doubt in anyone's mind that she was one of the new powers of the world.

Since that first mission, Snow White and Charming had dedicated their careers to bringing the Evil Queen down. Until their mission with Quinn and Ruby, they hadn't had all too much luck. The Evil Queen was always two steps ahead of them, countering their moves and escaping far too easily for the Agency's liking. Eventually they got a lead when Snow White managed to make one of the Evil Queen's generals defect.

It was his faulty information and apparent death wish that had gotten Quinn killed. So many things had gone wrong. There wasn't meant to be anyone left in the warehouse that Graham led them to. Graham should have known about the underground bunker that let the Evil Queen and her men hide away, completely undetected and in a position to ambush the agents. Snow and Charming had followed the Evil Queen out of the warehouse after a rather violent verbal sparring match between Snow White and the Evil Queen. Ruby, Quinn and Graham were left behind in the supposedly empty warehouse. Only Snow and Charming had been easily duped by the Evil Queen. She had been two steps ahead of them again. She had wanted Snow and Charming chase her just to get them out of the way.

The Evil Queen had appeared moments later on the upper level with a sniper rifle in hand and her body guards around her. Snow and Charming were nowhere in sight, still trying to chase the Evil Queen down. It hadn't taken long for the Evil Queen's men to flood the bottom floor where Quinn and Ruby were. Rather than chasing the Evil Queen down, they had been searching for clues in the wake of her escape. In the face of ten guns pointed at them, Ruby and Quinn had put their hands up while one of the Evil Queen's men shoved Graham to his knees.

"So nice of you to turn up, Graham." the Evil Queen said with a snarl. "I would have preferred you to keep your friends at home, but you never were particularly good at following orders. At least you decided that meeting here was in your best interests. You've certainly ruined my fun, Huntsman. I wanted to rip your heart out. I guess a bullet to the head will just have to do instead."

The Evil Queen loaded her rifle. "For your own sakes, stay out of my way, agents. This has nothing to do with you."

Evil Queen lifted her rifle, staring down the scope for a few seconds before firing quickly. She left no time for Ruby to attempt to salvage the situation. The bullet pierced Graham's forehead dead centre. Blood and brain sprayed out of the back of his head in a fine mist. The bullet casing had barely touched the ground before one of the Evil Queen's body guards picked it up. It was a practised move, one of routine that ensured that the Evil Queen never left any evidence. Two steps ahead indeed.

"He wasn't one of your agents; he was a defector from my ranks. I had every right to kill him, just like your Agency would do to any of your people. So don't spout righteous nonsense at me and don't try to fight my men. I have no intentions of either of you dying today, but that can and will easily change if you force my hand."

The Evil Queen turned and headed towards the nearest door.

Ruby's eyes flicked towards Quinn and he nodded at her ever so slightly. They were trained agents and the Evil Queen was one of the most powerful criminals in the word at the moment, they had a duty to try and bring her in. Ruby's first elbow did a fair amount of damage and the man behind her fell to the floor while another fell to her boot in his temple but that was the end of her luck. A hand came out and shoved a taser into her neck. It hadn't worked out so well for Quinn though. The men surrounding him weren't as generous. The last thing she heard before falling to the floor unconscious had been a gunshot. The Evil Queen had gotten away and both Quinn and Graham were dead, spilling blood into a large puddle on the warehouse floor.

Ruby had spent two days in hospital, and it took another three weeks before Granny would let her do anything other than paper work. The first place she went was Graham's apartment. He had insisted that the Evil Queen didn't know about it, that it was a better safe house than any they could offer him. He was wrong, and in the end, it was that fact that led to the fiasco in the warehouse. Ruby found the note from the Evil Queen. It was an offer that Graham had taken up. In return for his surrender and his life, Graham's nephew would live. As a result, Graham had planned the meeting at the warehouse knowing full well that there was a secret basement level. With Snow and Charming gone Graham should have been alone and ready to die for his betrayal against the Evil Queen. Ruby and Quinn shouldn't have been there, they weren't in Graham's plan and now Quinn was dead. Graham didn't even know; he didn't even know what he had done by working with the Evil Queen again and he never would. But the Evil Queen did. Ruby had trashed the place in her search and left with one thought on her mind. The Evil Queen and her people would pay.

/-/-/-/-/

Belle smiled up at Ruby as she entered the inventor's underground lair. Belle's call name was 'Beauty' but almost no one used it. Belle never did field work and almost never left her workshop in the lowest levels of the Agency's headquarters. It would be easier to get into the White House with a siege engine than getting into Belle's workshop.

"Hi Red, what can I help you with today?"

"I'm going after the Evil Queen. I need some gadgets and any intel you can give me."

Belle started bustling around her workshop, picking up gadgets and placing them on the one clear table in the middle of the room.

"What sort of intel? I don't really do intel. You should try Jiminy Cricket."

Ruby sighed. "Belle. I know who you were before you came here. I know that the Evil Queen held you captive for years."

Belle froze with her hand on something that looked particularly weapon-like. Belle's hand clenched slightly and Ruby's hand moved down to her side arm.

"Belle?"

Belle jolted into action again, her hand leaving the weapon to pick up a grappling hook. She dropped the grappling hook onto the table. There were a lot of gadgets piling up, and Ruby would need to dig through to try and find the most useful tools to take. Belle would insist on all of it.

"Then listen to me when I say don't go after her alone. She dangerous, but as long as you don't get in her way she'll leave you alone."

"She doesn't leave Snow White alone."

"Well Snow White isn't completely blameless so that's not a good example." Belle scoffed. "The Evil Queen is a cold and disturbed person, but she is also a tactical mastermind and a genius manipulator."

"I've read her file, Belle." Ruby said absently as she picked through the slowly growing pile Belle was creating.

Ruby moved most of the gadgets to the side. A few of the gadgets she kept simply because she wanted to see how they worked. That was how quickly Belle came up with new inventions. But by the end of the visit Ruby would limit herself to only a few gadgets.

"I'm looking for intel a bit more useful. Something we didn't know about her, something that could give me an edge."

"Like what?" Huffed Belle. "She likes apples and plays a mean game of chess. Is that what you want to know? Or maybe that her reputation of being ruthless and violent is well earned? Those myths about her cutting people's hearts out are true. No? How about the fact that she stills her own apple cider? I can't help you, Red. The information you want isn't something I can share, even if I knew it."

"That's very specific information. How do you know that sort of stuff?" Ruby said.

"I thought you knew who I was before I came here?" Belle drawled sarcastically.

"You lived with Rumpelstiltskin. You two were involved and the Evil Queen kidnapped you because of it."

Rumpelstiltskin was an unpleasant man with his hands in most illegal activities across the globe. From money laundering and gambling to people trafficking Rumpelstiltskin was involved.

"Yes. Then the Evil Queen found out, faked my death, and kept me locked up for years to use against him. For all her faults she is not a bad host, but I was always a threat and the things I was exposed to were limited at best. I can't help you, Red. If you're really going after her you'll need to find someone else to talk to. I'm not getting involved with any of those people again."

Belle started ordering the gadgets on the table, removing a few of them after critical glances at Ruby.

"Where would you look if you were me?"

"That depends on where you want to end up. I'd suggest somewhere underground where you can have adventures with dodos and talking rabbits. There are people out there who know the Evil Queen and know her story. Find them."

"That makes no sense."

"It makes perfect sense! You need to find the Evil Queen's story if you're going to find her."

"I don't need her story," growled Ruby. "I just need her."

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. And that's all I'm telling you. Figure the rest out, Red."

Ruby grabbed the bag Belle was holding out full of equipment she probably wouldn't or couldn't use and left.

/-/-/-/-/

Ruby spent a day in her apartment sorting through the gadgets Belle had given her. Without Belle to tell her what half of them did it took a bit of guesswork, but she managed to narrow down the pile. It quite possibly would have been a good idea to get a demonstration of each new gadget before annoying Belle to the point of being shooed out of her lab. She had no leads because Belle had been useless and if the Agency had a lead on the Evil Queen they would have gone after her already. Ruby supposed she could track down Snow and Charming seeing as they were the so-called experts.

There are people out there who know the Evil Queen and know her story. That's what Belle had told her, and Snow and Charming were the agents most likely to know.

Ruby dropped down into her couch. There was a weird obsession with stories in their agency. Snow and Charming were always going on about 'good' winning or some shit. To Ruby it just seemed like they were deluded because the Agency was in the business of murder and trickery. It didn't matter if it was for national defence, it was still murder. But if that let them sleep at night, it wasn't Ruby's concern. As long as they did their jobs.

Still, no one ever liked to talk about the fact that the whole Agency and the criminal world were obsessed with a bunch of fairy tales. Except Belle, apparently.

Belle liked books. Everyone knew that. If she wasn't inventing she was in her own personal library just off from her workshop. It was a pretty big library and no one else was even allowed inside let alone allowed to touch her books. One agent had tried and had ended up on deskwork for a month while his hand healed. The Agency didn't generally hire well-adjusted individuals and Belle was no exception. Morals tended to get in the way of the job if you were well adjusted.

But talking about adventures with dodos and talking rabbits was a bit beyond not being well adjusted.

Ruby was the first to admit that she didn't get out all too much. Her life was her work and that meant that she didn't have a lot of spare time for indulging herself in hobbies. But even she could figure out that Belle was alluding to something. All it took was a quick Google search and Ruby was practically kicking herself. Alice's Adventures in fucking Wonderland.

Several drug cartels merged to form the Wonderland Crew a few years ago under the rather firm hand of their new leader, Cora Mills. She called herself the Queen of Hearts. They had followed the naming scheme of the Evil Queen, an action put down to trying to ride on the coattails of her success. With such similar names it wasn't a far stretch to believe that they had some sort business connections. But as far as the Agency knew the Evil Queen had never even thought of approaching the Wonderland Crew. Their only connection was through the Queen of Hearts' employment of the Mad Hatter, who had once worked for the Evil Queen.

A visit to Snow White and Charming would be a good start. Then Ruby needed to get access to the Wonderland Crew. The only way to do that was through the White Rabbit. Too bad the man was fucking impossible to find on a good day. She'd need to send some feelers out. Jiminy Cricket hadn't let her down yet and hopefully he wouldn't now.

/-/-/-/-/

Finding Snow White and Charming had actually been easier than Ruby had expected. There was no such thing as 'work friends' at the Agency. They were secret agents and the unspoken rule was to keep personal and professional lives separate. They didn't even tell each other their real names but apparently Snow and Charming were the exceptions to the rule. They weren't only partners in the field, but they were married and living in a small but well decorated apartment in the inner city. It was horribly domestic and kind of gross in Ruby's opinion. Her own apartment consisted of only the necessities and a military level security system. Snow was surprised to see her at their front door but had welcomed her inside, which had seemed like a great breach in protocol. How they managed to stay alive so long when they invited dangerous people into their house was beyond Ruby. She may have no intention of harming them, but the fact remained that she could. It wasn't unheard of for agents to snap. Hook had been an alright guy until he had used information about the Agency to try and barter vengeance from the criminal world for his wife's murder. If Snow and Charming were willing to let her into their home now, they'd be willing in the future.

Charming greeted her with a grin and a silent apology over Quinn's death in the form of a quick squeeze to her shoulder. Ruby almost decked him in response. She and many other spies she knew did not take well to being touched. Snow went to make them each a cup of tea. They sat in the lounge and made small talk while Ruby pretended to drink her tea. She didn't really eat food that wasn't prepared by herself.

"What brings you by, Red?" Snow eventually asked.

Ruby placed her cup on the coffee table between them. "I want to understand the Evil Queen better and I was hoping you'd be willing to share the story of when you first met her."

Snow and Charming looked at each other; silently communicating in the same way that Ruby had once done with Quinn. While it was true that Quinn's death mostly fell on Graham and the Evil Queen's shoulders, Ruby couldn't help but blame Snow a little bit for bringing Graham to the Agency. Not only that, they had then fallen completely into the Evil Queen's trap that Ruby and Quinn had been defenceless to face her. Snow nodded to Charming and he sat back and began to tell the story of what had happened the first time they came face to face with the Evil Queen.

Ruby had read the reports. She knew that Snow White and Charming had been on a mission to investigate an arms dealer. While new and completely unknown, the arms dealer was able to ship a large amount of guns in and out the country very quickly. Their mission led them the warehouse and the arms dealer, the Evil Queen. It was that first encounter with Snow and Charming that something changed for the Evil Queen. If Belle's hints were any indication that something was important.

"We had the location of the warehouse and when we turned up there we found this huge cache of weapons." Charming started to explain. "It was some seriously heavy firepower, mostly fully automatic machine guns. We found her and her men escaping out the back and we followed. It wasn't until later that we found out that she had strapped this guy down in one of the back rooms and started to dissect him alive."

The man had been missing his heart. There had been more tearing than cutting around the arteries that hinted towards The Evil Queen ripping his heart out of the his chest. They never managed to identify the man, but he had probably been one of the Evil Queen's men. The Evil Queen had never taken well to betrayal, even in the early days of her business. But the vivisection had given her a fearful reputation and less and less people became willing to go against the Evil Queen.

Ruby knew this from the reports. After the Evil Queen made her escape Snow and Charming followed, and they ended up at what they suspected to be one of the Evil Queen's safe houses. Snow and Charming planted C4 around the main structure for the house and blew it up. It was excessive, but after the amount of weapons she had moved in such a small amount of time it was an acceptable response. The Evil Queen could turn into a very serious threat. Which she had, because Snow and Charming had failed to eliminate her. The Evil Queen had walked away with several minor wounds and a cut to her upper lip, which would scar. Snow White and Charming hadn't been reprimanded, they were new after all. But in all honesty Ruby was disgusted at their lack of professionalism and inability to look ahead. You did not leave a scene without confirming the target's death.

"Who owned the house?"

"A man named Daniel Stabler."

"Who's he?"

"We never found out. As far as the paper trails go he doesn't exist and we never found any physical proof of his existence."

Ruby nodded her thanks as she left. Snow White and Charming had given her next to no new information. But following up on Daniel Stabler could lead Ruby a step closer to finding the Evil Queen.

First Ruby needed to call Jiminy Cricket. Most people needed to wait for Jiminy to call them to get their intel. Ruby wasn't most people.

"Hey Cricket. Are we safe to talk?"

Jiminy made a soft humming sound and Ruby heard a few key strokes.

"Yes we are, Red. What can I help you with?"

"First off, how's the hunt for the White Rabbit going?"

Jiminy sighed and Ruby could almost picture him scratching his head in the soft glow of his computer screens.

"Badly."

"That's not what I wanted to hear."

"I'm sorry, Red but the White Rabbit is late." Archie paused for a second, continuing when Ruby didn't respond. "As in dead."

"I got it, Cricket. I still need to talk to someone in the Wonderland Crew though, so how are we going to fix that little problem?"

Sometimes talking with Jiminy was like pulling teeth. He had so much information at his fingertips and he hated giving it away even if he loved helping people. There was a trick to asking the right questions.

"I know where you can find the Mad Hatter. If you're looking for info on the Evil Queen he's your best bet."

"They call him mad for a reason. He's fucking insane!"

"Yes, but I can get you to him which is more than I can say about the Rabbit."

"Fine, send me what you have and then start looking into Snow White and Charming's first mission with the Evil Queen. I need to know the address of the house they blew up and I need it now."

"I'll text you the address in half an hour. Stay safe, Red. The Evil Queen is a powerful woman."

Jiminy hung up and Ruby made her way across the road towards her car. She knew that either Snow or Charming would be watching her from the window of their apartment. At least they would be if they were any good at their job. She purposefully headed towards the Agency's headquarters. It would give the impression that she had orders to talk to them and lessen the chance that they would ask awkward questions later. Technically, she wasn't a rogue agent. She wasn't disobeying any orders given and Granny was only partially disapproving of her actions. Bringing down the Evil Queen was a sort of overhanging mission that everyone in the Agency tried to do at least once. Though obviously no one had succeeded, anyone trying to was ignored until they got somewhere or until they screwed up so badly Granny reined them in. Now it was Ruby's turn, and she was not going to screw this up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part Two**

_It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. _– Noel Coward

The Mad Hatter was closer to Ruby's current position than the house. Ruby had been hoping to learn more about Daniel Stabler as a way to guide her meeting with the Hatter, but time was of the essence. Either way Ruby needed to see the Hatter, and the best place to do that was to go to the bar he frequented. Jiminy could guarantee he would be there, but not for long. The Agency had files on the Mad Hatter. He was the only known connection between the Evil Queen and the Queen of Hearts. He had once worked for the Evil Queen before leaving her service to work for Cora. He was Ruby's best bet to talk to, but it didn't make the task any more pleasant.

The Hatter sat in a corner booth with several empty bottles of beer in front of him. His namesake sat next to the bottles in the form of a black velvet top hat. That Jiminy had found him was sort of a miracle because the Hatter was especially skilled at getting in and out of places. But Jiminy had said he would be there and he was. The Mad Hatter was an escape artist of quite a bit of skill. He gave Houdini a run for his money and had been the sole reason Cora had escaped capture more times than the Agency liked to admit. It also made him an excellent thief and records showed he had been little more than a thief for hire before joining the Evil Queen. Ruby slipped into the seat opposite him, perching towards the edge of the booth so that she could dart out at a moment's notice.

The Hatter looked up, bleary eyed and blinked slowly at her.

"Ah, you're from the Agency."

"Yes, and you're the Mad Hatter who works for the Queen of Hearts. I'm surprised to find you here drunk in the middle of the day; all your files seemed to hint at you being a rather respectable criminal. I can respect a man who does his job well. This is just sad."

The Hatter laughed and ran a hand though his tousled hair. "There's hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person, you can't expect me to act respectable as well. I do my job and that's all that Bitch of Hearts wants so thank you very much but I'll keep drinking as much as I want."

"Do you know what I want from you, Hatter?" Ruby asked with a tilt of her head.

He shook his head violently. "Nope, and I don't care. We all live with the demons we make; mine are just a bit more corporal than yours."

"Where do your demons live then?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" He giggled. "One stupid mistake and I'm so screwed that talking to you doesn't even scare me."

The Hatter stood up, raised his bottle of beer and started yelling. "Dead man walking over here. Dead man walking!"

It drew the attention of the few patrons in the bar but they quickly lost interest in the Hatter, as if they had seen it all before. Ruby leaned back in the booth and reached her foot out, snagging it around the Hatter's knee. She jerked her foot forward and he collapsed back into the seat.

"And what does a dead man know about someone called Daniel Stabler?"

The Hatter's head shot up. "If you know what's good for you then don't say that name too loud, especially not around me, not now. The Evil Queen is listening and watching, she always is and if she finds out that you know about him, you're as dead as me."

"So he's real? There are no paper trails to suggest he exists as anything more than a ghost in the system."

"Oh he's real. He's my demon." The Hatter's head thumped on the table and he started muttering. "Never should have helped her. Never should have betrayed her."

"Everyone leaves a paper trail. Everyone leaves evidence and we've been searching for Daniel Stabler for a long time. If he's real we would have found him by now. No one stays off the grid forever, it's impossible."

The Hatter lifted his head and smirked. "Nothing is impossible, not when the Evil Queen's involved. Sometimes I've believed in six impossible things before breakfast and they're all to do with her."

His head thumped against the table again and he let out a loud snore.

/-/-/-/-/

It was risky to head to the address Jiminy had given her, but Ruby didn't have much of a choice. She needed to act quickly. If the Hatter was to be believed then the Evil Queen knew what Ruby was looking for. With enough time, Ruby could walk into a trap. Heading out straight away minimised that chance and hopefully meant that the Evil Queen didn't have time to cut any possible leads.

Ruby had a few go-to covers that worked most of the time and now was no different. She dug into her glove box and pulled out a small box that held an engagement ring and wedding band. She slipped them on her finger and prepared herself mentally to act as the devoted wife.

It was in a nice part of town, not top market, but a relatively safe area with a certain standard of property management. The address that Jiminy gave Ruby was an empty lot. The grass kept short, probably mowed every two weeks by a crew that was hired to do so.

There was no sign of a house once having stood on the property but both houses on either side of it were newer than the others on the street. Ruby wondered for a moment if there had been more destruction that what Snow White and Charming put in the report. It made sense, of course. A house wasn't blown up in the middle of suburbia without some sort of fallout. Ruby had assumed that Snow and Charming had made the house collapse in on itself. It was the safer course of action. Not that it took much to be safer than blowing up a house with a fiery ball of flames.

Ruby stood on the street in front of the empty lot. She held a print out of the property boundaries and water mains running through the property. It didn't take long for one of the neighbours to spot her from their windows. It was late in the afternoon and that meant that most of the people in the neighbourhood would be at work. Those who weren't were probably nosy as hell. People who didn't have much to fill their time with tended to get their kicks out of living vicariously through others. That was exactly the type of person Ruby was looking for right now; someone who would want to talk and tell stories. It only took fifteen minutes of pacing back and forth on the pavement with the print out in front of her for Ruby to hit gold. The nosy neighbour next door came out of his house on the premise of taking his half-full trash bag out.

"You look a bit lost, stranger."

Ruby's head snapped up as if he had startled her and gave the man a shaky grin.

"Oh. Yes, I guess so. My husband and I are looking into buying some property to build on." She placed a hand on her stomach and grinned at the man happily. "We need a bit more space than our apartment allows and he just got a promotion. What better house is there to raise a family than the one we build?"

The man grinned and held out his hand. "You speak the truth. My name is Marco, I live next door."

Ruby shook his hand and Marco gestured towards the house he had come out of.

"It's nice to meet you, Marco."

"You too, though I'm surprised that the property is for sale. Regina said she would never sell it."

Ruby titled her head to the side. "Regina? I've been dealing with a man called Daniel Stabler. I thought he was the owner."

Marco shook his head slowly. "No, no, no. Young Daniel died many years ago. There was an … accident and that house … collapsed with him inside it. His fiancé Regina and their friend, Jefferson who lived with them, were out for the day."

Ruby gasped and raised her hands to her mouth. "That's terrible, the poor woman!"

Marco nodded. "Regina and Jefferson had quite the argument about it too. Something about how he should have protected Daniel. Poor man didn't know what hit him. The police had to separate them because she was threatening to … well, relocate the top hat he always wore to somewhere tender."

Marco looked embarrassed about telling someone about Regina's apparently foul mouth. A top hat was interesting though because top hats were not common, even in nice neighbourhoods. Could Jefferson could possibly be the Mad Hatter Ruby had talked to only a half hour ago? Marco's gaze suddenly turned angry and for a second Ruby thought she might have to fight her way out of this situation.

"If someone is telling you they're Daniel Stabler they're scamming you and Regina."

"You're right! Oh dear, this is terrible. My husband and I are just trying to start a family and that poor girl doesn't need any more trouble from this place." Ruby snapped her fingers like she had just thought of something. "I'd like to help her if I can. Do you have a number I can call her on? Hopefully we can work together to get everything cleaned up and whoever is impersonating Daniel in jail."

Marco grinned at her and waved towards his house. "I have it inside. Come in."

Ruby followed Marco inside and into his kitchen where he slowly went through his phone book until he found Regina's number. Pulling a notepad towards him he wrote out a name and number and handed it to Ruby with a flourish.

"Good luck getting this bastard."

Ruby left with a grin and a full name.

Regina Mills.

Regina _Mills_.

Ruby knew that whoever this person was they were important, possibly the Evil Queen herself. But it raised a lot of questions. Mills wasn't a common last name. It wasn't uncommon, but it seemed like a bit more than a coincidence.

Regina Mills. Possibly related to Cora Mills? It seemed the chances of Jefferson being the Mad Hatter were increasing.

It wasn't until she had driven away that Marco realised he never learnt the young woman's name.

/-/-/-/-/

Ruby only trusted a few people in her life and Jiminy Cricket wasn't one of them. She didn't really trust anyone at the Agency. Who could blame her in a work environment that discouraged the use of real names? Ruby had only ever learnt two agent's names. One had been Quinn and the other was Granny. Though Granny was her codename, she was also Ruby's grandmother and the woman who raised her. With Quinn's death, Ruby turned to Granny as the only person she could trust. That Granny ran the Agency was a bonus. Ruby needed to run a series of facial recognition and name checks with the best possible software.

Granny's office was always open to Ruby, assuming that there wasn't a meeting above her pay grade taking place. As Ruby approached Granny's secretary, Cinderella waved her through. Granny was sitting behind her desk, writing up whatever it was that she did to keep the Agency afloat. The most annoying bobble-headed wolf sat on the desk next to the guest chair. Ruby was pretty sure it was a joke at her expense seeing as Granny knew how much she hated the fairy tale call signs. She had picked Red because it was a basic colour, easy to say and hard to mishear. Granny had picked 'Granny' a few years after Ruby had picked 'Red' when she had moved to the head of the Agency. They had never talked about the names, but Granny had gotten that damned bobble-headed wolf on the first day.

Granny barely glanced up as Ruby walked in. Cinderella, despite what her call name suggested, was actually a very good shot. She would at least set the alarm off before dying should someone try to storm the Granny's office at the top of the Agency's headquarters. At least that was the idea. Ruby was an avid campaigner of Granny getting a few more layers of security in place.

"Hey Granny. I need a bit of a favour."

"I'm good Red, how are you? That's good. Yes it is nice to see you for something other than work. We should really do this more often." Granny muttered as she signed the last bit of paperwork before packing it all away and locking it in her desk.

Ruby rolled her eyes. "You know there are people out there who don't even see their grannies once a week. Be glad I'm willing to be seen with you on and off the clock. Anyway, I have something that may interest you. I may have found a connection between the Evil Queen and the Queen of Hearts."

Granny raised an eyebrow and pushed her chair back a bit letting Ruby access her computer. Jiminy was the best at finding information, but Granny had most of the same computer programmes on her computer. The phone number Marco had given her was a dead end. It led to an unregistered disposable cell phone that didn't even have a personalised answer phone message. It took a few minutes, but it wasn't hard to track down Regina Mills. There were only 115 'Regina Mills' in the country, and only 50 'Cora Mills'. As it turned out there was only one 'Regina Mills' whose mother was one of the fifty 'Cora Mills'. Her files were mostly missing, evidence of a life lived hidden in various shadows but there were always a few places to look. Ruby found an old photo of Regina Mills as a teenager from her last year of high school. Year books were often over looked since they had only recently started being digitised. Most people didn't even know that they could get a digital copy of their old year book.

"Well, fuck." Granny said.

"Granny, language!"

"When you said you may have found a connection you weren't lying."

Sitting on the screen in front of them was a picture of Regina Mills, daughter of Cora Mills. A picture that really left no doubt in either of their minds as to who they were looking at. She may have been younger but the Regina Mills they were looking at was definitely the Evil Queen.

The Evil Queen was the Queen of Hearts' daughter, and Snow White and Charming had killed her fiancé. Ruby could definitely understand why the Evil Queen hated them.

That wasn't exactly the sort of thing she had suspected she'd uncover from Belle's stupid little hints.

/-/-/-/

Finding out that the Evil Queen was Regina Mills didn't expose all that much about the woman. It did allow them to track down who Jefferson was though, and Ruby's suspicions about him being the Mad Hatter were true. It meant that the Mad Hatter had been with the Evil Queen from the beginning. Regina Mills and Sebastian Jefferson found their way onto the Agency's watch list. A week later they had a hit.

Ruby dressed in a very slimming red dress that flared at the hip to allow her thigh holster and a few knives to remain unseen. Jefferson had tickets to a large gala held in the country's largest museum. It wasn't a crime and there didn't seem to be any in the works that involved the museum, at least none that the Agency knew about. But in Jefferson's case he couldn't go anywhere with that many valuables and have it not look suspicious. So Ruby was going to attend the gala and follow the Hatter around the whole night. It was a masquerade ball and Ruby couldn't decide if that would help or hinder her. On one hand it allowed her some anonymity but also gave the Hatter the same.

In the end he wore his top hat, which made it easy for Ruby to spot him from her car across the street. He wasn't the only man to wear a top hat of course, but Ruby had never seen another quite like the Hatter's. He was alone and it was easy for Ruby, red dress and delicate mask in place, to enter right behind him. Jefferson checked his hat and coat at the door. Without them he looked like any other well-dressed patron. All most all of the men wore well-tailored pants and shirts. The gaudy mask that was probably meant to be ironic was all Jefferson though. It had little tea cups on it and was incredibly hideous. It did make following the Hatter much easier because everyone else at the venue had at least a bit of fashion sense.

Ruby kept her eyes trained on the Hatter as she turned down the invitations to dance from various men. He spent the night moving through the crowd, chatting and dancing on occasion. A fair amount of his time was spent chasing down the waiters holding the trays of appetisers and eating anything they offered. Three hours into the night the Hatter excused himself from his current dance partner and moved towards one of the unused areas. Ruby was at the edge of the dance floor, trying to follow when a hand wrapped around her wrist. She didn't turn around. Maybe she should have.

"I'm not interested in dancing, now let go."

The person holding her wrist chuckled. "Dear, that's no way to talk to a Queen."

Ruby spun around. She knew that voice. The Evil Queen grinned at her and grasped her other wrist. She placed one of Ruby's hands on her shoulder and the other held out at shoulder height between them. Ruby barely had time to react before she was swept into a rather quick dance, one of the Evil Queen's hands on her waist. She wore a low cut black dress decorated with lace and a matching mask of lace and diamonds. Her hair was pulled back from her face and flowed artfully across her shoulders.

"Now I know that something is going on here." Ruby spat.

"If it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't." the Evil Queen said with a smirk.

"You're quoting at me? Seriously?"

The Evil Queen hummed her agreement. "Yes dear. It's from Lewis Carroll's _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ in case you were wondering. Extremely silly book in my opinion, but it seemed appropriate considering our mutual friend."

"So you're not here to steal anything? I apologise for not quite believing your word."

"Of course not, dear. Don't be absurd. I transfer much more fun items than this museum boasts around the world."

"And the Hatter?"

"Hatter works for a woman much more interested in money and power than pretty baubles. No my dear, we're here for you. Apology accepted by the way. It wouldn't do for an agent of your caliber to accept everything at face value."

The Evil Queen twirled and dipped Ruby, making an escape attempt very hard. Not impossible, but impossible to do without drawing attention to herself and that was preferred at this point.

"I'm not that interesting."

"I disagree." the Evil Queen whispered, their faces close together as she pulled Ruby out of the dip. "Oh, Agent Red you are very interesting indeed. You're the first person to dig as deep as you have. You figured out my name, my connection to the Queen of Hearts and why I'm going to kill Snow White and Charming."

She chuckled again, sending shivers down Ruby's spine. "Marco was so distraught over the fact that someone was using Daniel's death to make a few quick dollars he called me as soon as you left. Plenty of time to make sure my phone was untraceable."

The Evil Queen spun Ruby around and pulled her in tight. Ruby's back pressed against the Evil Queen's front.

"And you've yet to do anything with that information except watch Jefferson and myself. What do you want from me, Agent Red? I'm sure we can work something out." The Evil Queen murmured, her lips brushing against Ruby's ear.

"I don't think so, Regina. I can't be bought."

Ruby spun around again and this time the Evil Queen pressed up against her front.

"No? That is a shame. I was willing to offer you so much." She leaned forward; close enough for their noses to touch. "By the way, I was lying."

The Evil Queen pressed her lips to Ruby's. As Ruby started to relax everything disappeared. The press of lips to hers, the tight dancing stance and most importantly, the Evil Queen were all gone.

It wasn't until Granny called her the next day that Ruby figured out what the Evil Queen had been lying about. There had been a theft at the museum and no one knew who had done it, no one except Ruby. She wasn't even surprised. The Evil Queen and her kind were all liars.


	3. Chapter 3

**Responses would be great, because I'm writing the squeal as we speak. Who do you want to see more of? Who do you want to see less of? Who do you just want to see at all?**

**Also, this chapter has a character's death in it, fair warning.**

**Part Three**

_The human race tends to remember the abuses to which it has been subjected rather than the endearments. What's left of kisses? Wounds, however, leave scars._ ― Bertolt Brecht

Finding Jefferson, despite his Houdini tendencies, wasn't as hard as Jiminy led her to believe. Finding the Evil Queen when she didn't want to be found was. Jefferson became Ruby's only way to find the Evil Queen. She was going to retrieve what they had stolen as a matter of pride. It didn't matter that the museum had been weirdly quiet about the whole affair. That the museum hadn't reported it meant it was probably stolen or illegally gained in the first place, but Ruby didn't care. She would not allow herself to fall for a trick like that again.

It was pride that made her rush into finding the Hatter. Once she had a location she wasted no time in heading him off. She should have waited, bided her time until she could corner the Hatter in a pub or wherever he ended up falling asleep at night. Her pride got in the way and as a result she forced her way into a rundown house where she knew the Hatter to be. As soon as she walked inside Ruby had five guns pointed at her.

She held up her hands, glaring at the Hatter and effectively ignoring everyone else in the room. If she could convince the men around her that the best course of action, she had nothing to worry about. If she couldn't, well ...

Cora Mills was a drug lord and was the main supplier for all the major cities, if not most of the country. More often than not, meetings between one of Cora's people and a third party were a means for Cora to distribute her wares. Hopefully, if Ruby kept all her attention on the Hatter and away from the buyers they'd leave her alone. Most of the smaller organisations were weary of the pull and push between the Agency and crime syndicates. They tended to wait on the edge of any battle and pick at the pieces that were left.

"You know what I want, Hatter. What have you done with it?"

The Hatter grinned and giggled before waving a hand at Ruby.

"Men, let me introduce you to Agent Red from the Agency. I'm not promising you anything, you know I can't, but Cora has become annoyed with this particular agent recently."

Ruby scoffed. "Liar, you're just trying to use these men. I haven't done anything to the Queen of Hearts."

"No, but you're looking into things she doesn't want to anyone looking into. I'm sure you can understand why that might annoy her."

The men steadied their guns, preparing to shoot. They managed to fire a few shots off as Ruby threw herself back through the door that led towards outside. She landed on her shoulder and pulled herself into a roll before jumping to her feet and running out the front door. It would take a few seconds for them to make their way out of the house after her but the situation was definitely in their favour.

Ruby needed to get to her car three blocks away because though she loved her bright red Aston Martin, it was too obvious sometimes. Her head start wouldn't be enough. Like hell was she going to give up though. Too bad Belle hadn't given her a scooter in a bag or something. Most of what she had picked up from Belle hadn't been as useful as she had hoped. But why rely on gadgets when a quick mind could get you out of most problems. Unfortunately, being chased down the road by a couple of thuggish drug dealers wasn't one of them.

Ruby was half way down the street when the thugs started firing at her. She sprung into a cartwheel and started zigzagging. Anything to make it harder for the thugs to hit her. A car door slammed and Ruby heard the engine start. She could not outrun a car, not when she still had two blocks to run. She was coming up to a corner and she had already decided to follow the footpath right rather than crossing the road. Hopefully she could cut through a few backyards and lose the car. Ruby could just make out the sound of a second car roaring down the road, gaining on her quickly. A sleek black car drove past her and turned at the corner of the street with a screech of tires on tarmac. The passenger door flung open right in front of Ruby.

"Get in, Agent Red, and hold on."

It only took Ruby a second to decide to fling herself into the car. At least dying at the Evil Queen's hands was a better death than being shot down by a bunch of drug addled thugs. Her door had barely closed when the Evil Queen started driving. Looking in the rear view mirror revealed two cars following them, and men leaning out of the windows of each car holding guns. The Hatter was leaning out of the passenger window of the closest car. He was grinning and laughing, occasionally shooting at Regina's car but mostly just waving his gun around. Ruby wasted no time drawing her side arm from her hip holster and pointing it at the Evil Queen.

"Well this is fun and all, but would you mind telling me what the hell you're doing here?"

"Saving your life, dear. Why, what did it look like?" the Evil Queen drawled.

She shifted gear and twisted the steering wheel sharply causing Ruby to slam into the side of the car. One of her hands shot out and wrestled Ruby's gun out of her hand while she was still half stunned from her head hitting the door. A hand came from the back seat and grabbed the pistol that Regina took from Ruby. Ruby silently cursed to herself, she really wasn't on the top of her game if she hadn't noticed the two men in the back seat with mini Uzis.

"You really should wear a seat belt, they save lives you know."

"Oh shut up!" There was something very infuriating about having a conversation with the Evil Queen. "Where are we going?"

"To one of my clean-up crews. Now be quiet and let me drive."

It didn't tell Ruby much, just that the Evil Queen expected someone to die. Ruby just hoped it wasn't her. There were plenty ways that Ruby could have stopped the car and gotten free, the car door wasn't even locked. But most of those options left few good outcomes. Getting out of the car was only one problem. Even if she managed to get away from the Evil Queen, Ruby would still need to get away from the men following behind them. Easier said than done and at least the Evil Queen seem invested in her survival. Of course they were driving at such high speeds that it was still possible that she'd be killed in a car accident. Ruby didn't know where Regina has learnt to drive, but it was impressive. Just as impressive as the car which seemed kitted out to survive an attack from an army.

Regina took the corners sharply when she could. She let the tail end of the car swing out into the other lane before righting the car and zooming forward again. She drove up the middle of the road, straddling both lanes before pulling into one lane quickly and almost causing an accident. Cars behind them slowed down, creating a road block for the two cars following them.

Regina started to slow the car down as they entered a rather empty warehouse district. The two cars were starting to catch up, but their bullets were doing very little damage against Regina's car.

"Deal with them." the Evil Queen said quietly, her attention not turning from the road and the difficult driving she had been performing. "I don't care about the others, but make sure Jefferson dies."

The two men acted immediately. They unbuckled their seat belts, lowered their windows to lean out and started shooting. They seemed to have deadly accuracy and the two cars soon stopped moving. Ruby could barely make out a series of people pouring out of one of the 'abandoned' warehouses. They all toted guns and moved to surround the cars.

"I thought Jefferson was one of your people. He used to live with you."

"Jefferson," the Evil Queen said with a snarl, "likes to call himself a 'dead man walking' for a very good reason. He has been living on borrowed time ever since he betrayed me. He knew that I would kill him some day and the constant paranoia drove him quite insane. I'm just fulfilling a promise I made a long time ago, my dear. Jefferson chose to follow orders from my mother rather than me. He is just as responsible for Daniel's death as my mother and those two idiots you call agents. But you've already figured most of that out, haven't you?"

Ruby nodded slowly as The Evil Queen headed away from the warehouses.

"His death is nothing to cry over and certainly nothing I will lose sleep over." She said quietly.

As the moved into the city streets she slowed the car down to legal speeds. Soon Ruby started to recognise the streets they were passing though as those near the drug dealers' house. The car was silent until Regina pulled up next to the curb, a few meters away from Ruby's car.

"Okay, I'll bite." Ruby said. "Why was now the best time to kill the Hatter? I mean, that's a long time to keep someone alive. It's been, what? About ten years since he betrayed you and now you've had him killed?"

"Jefferson's job was to protect Daniel. He betrayed me and he failed but he still had his uses so I kept him alive. He was finally more useful to me dead, it's that simple."

"Is it that simple with me? Is that why you saved me today?"

"Right now you're very useful to me, Agent Red." the Evil Queen shrugged. "I probably won't kill you in the end but I give no guarantees."

"You seem to think I would be easy to kill."

The Evil Queen grinned. "You're good, but I'm better. Get out."

"No kiss this time?" Ruby held out her hand. "Also, I'd like my gun back."

The Evil Queen glanced at her. "You enjoyed the last one then, did you? I'm afraid I don't need to distract you this time, Miss Lucas."

One of the men in the back seat cleared his throat, reminding Ruby that side arm or not, getting out of the car alive was still her best option. Ruby scrambled to get out of the car and as soon as she was clear, the door slammed shut and the Evil Queen peeled off around the corner.

It wasn't the Uzis that had scared her though. The Evil Queen had called her 'Miss Lucas'. The Evil Queen couldn't possibly know who she was. Right?

When Ruby had joined the Agency precautions were taken so that she could never be used against Granny. Anita, Ruby's wayward mother had spent a lot of time making sure that Ruby only existed as Agent Red and none of that had been legal. Anita had rebelled against her mother's expectations by joining a mercenary group. Anita had eventually ended up leading them. When she gave birth to Ruby, Anita had given her up to allow her a more normal life with Granny. She had essentially erased Ruby Lucas from existence once Ruby joined the Agency. With Anita's death a few years ago there should have been nothing to link them and no way for anyone to find out who Ruby Lucas was.

But the Evil Queen had found one.

/-/-/-/-/

Granny had not been happy with her when Ruby got back to headquarters. Cinderella had met her in the lobby and silently escorted Ruby to Granny's office. Granny had yelled at for the better part of an hour about being irresponsible and self-destructive.

Ruby would have argued, but it was true. Her actions since Quinn's death were irresponsible, and as a result she had brought herself to the attention of the Evil Queen.

"What happened, Red? One minute I'm getting reports about you being chased down the road and next thing I know you're gone only to turn up an hour later. Even Jiminy couldn't keep track of you. That's not even mentioning that you shouldn't have been there in the first place."

Ruby slumped in her chair and stared at the damn bobble-headed wolf. She sighed deeply; there was no way to explain the Evil Queen's involvement and have it sound good.

"The car belonged to the Evil Queen." Ruby muttered.

"The Evil Queen sent a car to save you?" Granny said with disbelief.

Ruby was a good liar, one of the best but it didn't mean a thing when confronted with Granny. It was hard to lie to the woman who had taught you to lie, so Ruby didn't even bother hiding her unease at Granny's assumption.

"No." Granny said with surety. "It's more than that, isn't it? What aren't you telling me, Red?"

"The Evil Queen didn't send the car, she was driving it. She got me out of there and then she made sure the Hatter was a casualty of the car chase. It was planned. She even had a clean-up crew ready to get rid of the evidence after her men destroyed the thugs and the Hatter with a couple of Uzis."

Granny tapped her fingers on her desk. "The Evil Queen has taken an interest in you. That's either a very bad thing or a very good thing."

"It gets worse." Ruby groaned. "She knows who I am. She called me Miss Lucas."

"That's not possible."

"I know! Except it is and I don't know if that means I'm compromised or not. But we have bigger problems. There was a reason she killed the Hatter. She kept him alive for ten years. There has to be a reason to kill him now. I just have no idea what it is. She's is planning something, and it's going to be big."

/-/-/-/-/

Three days later Granny called Ruby into a meeting. Cinderella waved her through the door with a 'they're waiting on you' before getting back to her work. 'They' turned out to be Granny, Snow White, Charming, Mulan, Lancelot and Grumpy. Ruby hadn't worked with Lancelot before, but she had worked with Mulan and Grumpy. Mulan was a capable agent with a good closed case rate and a very skilled hand to hand fighter. She was also skilled in the use of various poisons. Grumpy wasn't quite so impressive. He was a good enough brawler and could shoot a gun but mostly he just followed Snow White around on missions like a lost puppy. He was part of a tight knit team of six other agents with a high success rate, but around Snow White he started acting stupid. More often than not he was drunk unless working with his team but he was acceptable back up in a pinch. Even if Ruby tended to think of him as slightly expendable.

"Nice of you to join us." Grumpy snarled.

Ruby ignored him and nodded at Granny. She walked into the room and perched on the edge of Granny's desk, ignoring the chair left for her that sat between Charming and Grumpy.

"What's up, Granny?"

"We have an intelligence report about a meeting between the Evil Queen and the Queen of Hearts going down in a few days."

Ruby ran her hand through her hair. "Well, that screams trap. The Evil Queen has her reasons for not working with the Queen of Hearts and she's not likely to change her mind anytime soon."

Snow opened her mouth to argue but Granny spoke before she could.

"Trust me, Red, I know. I think this is what the Evil Queen has been planning though, and we can't just ignore it. I'm sending the six of you in to gather intelligence. Capture if the possibility arises, but I want minimal casualties. I expect little to no confrontation during this mission."

"With all due respect, Granny," Snow started carefully. "Shouldn't we take this opportunity to stop an alliance between the Evil Queen and the Queen of Hearts? If we got enough agents we could storm the place and take both of them down."

Granny pursed her lips unhappily.

"With all due respect," Ruby drawled. "I think Snow and Charming should be left out of this. It's only going to end in their deaths."

Granny suppressed a smirk while Snow and Charming let out outraged cries of protest.

"We're your best bet at capturing the Evil Queen." Charming shouted.

Snow nodded. "Exactly. We know the most about her and …"

"You know shit about her." Ruby interrupted. "If you knew anything you'd know that the Evil Queen blames Cora Mills for her fiancé's death. You'd know that she blames you just as much and you'd know her name. But you don't know any of those things. You've spent years chasing her around the world while the rest of us actually did our jobs and you still know nothing."

Charming was speechless and Snow White opened and closed her mouth a few times before speaking.

"No one knows her name, and she doesn't blame us for anything!"

"I know her name and it only took me a few weeks to figure it out." Ruby shook her head in disbelief. "The two of you lack any form of common sense. You've fucked up every mission to do with the Evil Queen because you believe in juvenile ideals like 'good' and 'evil'. You're not heroes, you're agents and frankly I don't think you act like it. But whether you come on this mission or not isn't up to me. It's up to Granny, our boss, so if she says you're coming with us, that's fine. All I need to know is if I'm going to need to stay far enough away from half my team so that I'm not caught in the cross fire."

Charming scowled. "What's her name?"

"Sorry," Ruby said with a shake of her head. "You don't have high enough clearance to know that."

/-/-/-/-/

Ruby did not want to work with Snow White and Charming on a mission that was certainly a trap designed especially for them. Despite that, Ruby led Snow, Charming, Mulan and Grumpy out of a jet and onto a roof top. Below them was the apartment complex that the meeting was taking place in. The penthouse was already full of the Queen of Hearts' men according to Lancelot's reports. He sat in one of the buildings opposite the apartment complex with a pair of binoculars and a sniper rifle.

From the roof they moved silently down through maintenance vents that came out on the upper level of the penthouse suit. It overlooked a large open area in the lower level where most of Cora's men could be found. Only two men remained on the upper level. Mulan and Ruby quickly tasered them in the neck and lowered them to the ground. There were a few adjoining rooms and the five agents split up to clear them. Any phones or weapons from the men were taken when Cora's men were tied up. There were quite a few cell phones, but no one had any sort of ear piece or radio. The Queen of Hearts was well known for being reckless and erratic. She rarely, if ever, kitted her men with more than the pistols they all carried. The Evil Queen was the exact opposite and her men were always well equipped, both with weaponry and with the more useful gadgets. It allowed the Evil Queen to coordinate her men better. That wasn't the only difference though. The Evil Queen's men were loyal to her, and in turn she was loyal to them. She paid for body armour and training and her men never questioned her or walked out mid-mission. Cora's men were all mercenaries. They looked out for themselves. She had a few loyal men, like the Hatter, but her reputation scared away most potential employees. It was well known that Cora was both unforgiving of failure and easy to anger. The combination had ended many people's lives early.

The agents moved through the upper level until they overlooked Cora and the men she had with her. The stainless steel railing around the stairs was made of sheets stainless steel from ground to hand height. It provided excellent cover and allowed them to move undetected.

The Queen of Hearts huffed and dropped gracefully into an arm chair. "She's late."

"I'm sure she'll be here soon." One of her men said a little awkwardly.

"She'd better be." Cora said darkly. "I didn't accept tardiness when she was a child, and I won't accept it now. I raised her better than that."

Snow gasped softly.

"She's the Evil Queen's mother?" She hissed.

"Now is not the time, Snow White. Stick to the plan and stay silent." Ruby hissed back.

"We could capture her now and use her as leverage against the Evil Queen." Charming reasoned to Snow.

Snow nodded and Grumpy nodded with her. Grumpy had been endlessly devoted to Snow White ever since she saved his life. When it came to Snow he didn't even think, he just agreed with whatever came out of Snow's mouth. Ruby glared at the three of them.

"No, forget it." She snapped.

It took less than a minute for Snow to start crawling towards the lower level, her gun in hand. Charming and Grumpy followed leaving Ruby to silently fume at them.

"I swear to god, Snow, if you live though this I will kill you myself." She muttered. "Stay down, Mulan. Lancelot, hold your fire until I say otherwise. We need to see how this plays out before we compromise the mission any more."

Mulan nodded and Lancelot confirmed over the com system. Snow settled into a secure stance at the base of the stairs. She would still mostly be behind cover, but had a better shot at Cora and her men. Unlike Mulan and Ruby she wouldn't have to expose her head by peering above the railing to shoot. Snow popped up, pointing her gun at the Queen of Hearts. Charming and Grumpy did the same from their positions further up the stairs.

"Cora Mills, you're under arrest."

Cora's head whipped around and she grinned up at Snow. Cora looked bat-shit insane, there was no other word for it. Madness, it seemed ran rampant in the Wonderland Crew. Cora didn't care what happened to herself or anyone else in the room. She had a plan and she would stick to the plan to the bitter end. Ruby knew this wouldn't end well for anyone.

"Am I really?" Cora spat. "You and what army, Snow White? All I see is Charming and something that could pass as human if you dressed it up well enough. Your head will be a nice present for my daughter."

Ruby had never met the Queen of Hearts. Much like the Evil Queen had once been to her, Cora was someone that had only existed on paper and spoken word for Ruby. Ruby knew how criminal organisations worked, Granny had taught her well. The way Snow and Charming went about it, chasing after the big bad was not an efficient way of bringing down an organisation. You needed to pull it apart piece by piece, weaken it and then, when the leader had nothing to stand on, knock them off. Otherwise you created a vacuum at the top of the organisation that someone else filled. A new leader just meant that things would happen slightly differently and unexpectedly for a while. If you brought the whole organisation down you gained a few years of peace. It took time to rebuild under new leadership. It took time to build up contacts, reputation and reach in the criminal world. The smaller people of the organisation were the ones Ruby had always focused on. It had taken her years but she had certainly weakened Cora's drug cartel. The amount of men loyal to her had dwindled, and support in the form of contacts was minimised via well timed arrests. Cora was losing her grip on her own organisation. But there was still enough left for someone to salvage the Wonderland Crew if Snow succeeded in arresting Cora. Snow White's vendetta would cost Ruby years of work.

"We have others with us!" Snow called out.

Ruby stayed still and silent. This was not how Granny wanted this to go down and it went against her direct orders. If any of them made it out of this alive there would be hell to pay. Cora smirked and waved her hand as she turned her back on Snow and wandered into another room in the house. Cora's men lifted their guns and started firing. Snow, Charming and Grumpy took cover, occasionally leaning around to shoot a few shots. They were hitting most of the time.

Cora's men lived up to the movie henchmen with terrible aim and Ruby knew it was because Cora liked to cut costs. Cora liked money and she liked having lots of it. She hired the cheapest mercenaries possible. It normally balanced out because Cora hired a lot of mercenaries and wasn't afraid to use them. She had a tactical mind, and often came up with plans that others would not expect. It was amazing what could be accomplished when you didn't care if half of your men lived or not.

This time was different though. Cora had fewer men and she hadn't stationed them in the most secure area of the house. It seemed like bad planning, but despite her rather ruthless disregard with life, Cora never endangered her own on a whim.

It hit Ruby suddenly and it hit her hard. Cora had given up her normal advantages for one reason and one reason only. Her daughter. If reports were to be believed this was the first face to face meeting between mother and daughter in ten years. Cora had given up security to make sure that her daughter would be comfortable.

The sound of glass shattering bought Ruby back to reality. One of the high windows broke causing glass to rain onto the carpet. Lancelot had fired a shot and taken out another of Cora's men. Ruby let out an aggravated sigh. Why was she stuck with the hero complex agents who couldn't obey orders? Mulan was a thankful exception.

Mulan was staring at her while everyone else fired. Soon everyone would be out of ammo because they were on an intelligence mission, not a combat mission. Ammo and powerful guns had not been on the check list. They were not in a position to fight off several gangs of gun toting men. Ruby rubbed a hand over her eyes. There should have been no casualties, those had been the orders. But apparently fucking Snow White didn't listen to orders.

Ruby made up her mind, there was only one way they were all getting out of this. They needed to get Cora to surrender before the Evil Queen arrived with her men. If they didn't they would be incapable of getting away at all. The Evil Queen always had men who were very well armed and looking for a fight. Ruby pulled out her pistol and Mulan did the same. With a roll of her eyes Ruby peeked above cover and took her first shot. Seconds later Mulan was shooting too. Still mostly unseen by the Queen of Hearts' men, they were able to quickly thin their numbers out despite the awkward angle. Snow, Charming and Grumpy were at least efficient. As the last man fell they moved quickly to the lower floor and checked the pulses of the men they had shot.

Ruby turned to Mulan. "Check everyone up here. Make sure they're still unconscious and tied up. If we're going to be here much longer I need to know those men won't cause any problems."

Mulan nodded and headed back into the rooms they had secured. A soft thump echoed through the penthouse and Ruby guessed that one of the men had woken up. He had probably been hiding from the gun fire. Ruby descended the stairs to the bottom floor.

"Are you happy now, Snow?" She hissed.

Snow just shook her head and pulled her last magazine out of her pocket. She silently reloaded her pistol and sprinted towards the doorway Cora had gone through.

"Snow! Jesus Christ, just wait a damn minute." Ruby growled.

She checked the bullets in her own gun and found them lacking. Quickly switching magazines, Ruby quietly made her way to the room Cora had fled to. Cora sat at a desk, paper and pens in front of her. She had been writing, ignoring the sounds of gun fire and dying when Snow stormed in. Now she sat back as Snow stood in the centre of the room, her gun trained on Cora.

"I was told that I killed someone the Evil Queen cared about, but I don't believe that. That was you, you did something. After I tracked the anonymous tip to you I spent ages thinking about it. I could never figure out what you wanted from that mission. Why would the Queen of Hearts give the Agency information? You just wanted to use the Agency, didn't you? We were an excuse to get rid of someone."

Cora threw back her head and laughed. "Stupid girl. No, I used your Agency to make my daughter realise that she couldn't just play the same small time games her father had. I used you to make her think that he was targeted by your precious Agency. That's why I gave you the tip. Killing her fiancé was all on you. I guess I should thank you though, look at what a good job you did at creating the Evil Queen!"

Ruby saw Snow's finger slip to the trigger. It was a small movement, but one that Ruby knew well. One of the first rules of gun safety was that you didn't put your finger on the trigger until you were ready to shoot.

Snow shot.

Ruby was only half way across the room. Cora's head snapped back and the cream wall behind her sprayed red with a fine mist of blood. Ruby came to a stop, staring at Cora.

Snow lowered her gun, muttering to herself. "They're all liars. We're the good guys."

Ruby holstered her gun and took two quick steps towards Snow. She swung her fist and connected with the other woman's chin, knocking her to the floor. Ruby grabbed Snow's gun from where she had dropped it and flicked the safety on.

"Don't you dare fucking disobey me again! Do you have any idea what you've done? Now get up and get out of here. Good guy my ass."

Snow glared and spat blood and saliva onto the carpet but did what she was told. If only she had done that earlier.

Ruby knew better than most that there would be consequences for this. Her mother had abandoned her for the first twenty three years of her life, and hadn't even bothered to keep in contact with her after that. It was always Ruby or Granny that had to reach out to Anita. But Ruby had still mourned her mother's death, and she had still hunted down the man who had given Anita her fatal stab wound. The Evil Queen, Regina would fight to avenge her mother's death one way or another.

Ruby shoved Snow's pistol into the waistband of her pants and followed Snow out into the main area of the lower floor. There, leaning against the railing of the upper level stood the Evil Queen. Her men had flooded the penthouse. There were at least three heavily armed men on each disarmed and handcuffed agent and a dozen more standing in the room. Regina's two body guards stood behind her as they always did.

Several guns pointed at Snow and Ruby. They held their hands above their heads as they were thoroughly frisked and disarmed. A coffee table had been moved into the middle of the room, and the agent's weapons, cell phones and ear pieces made up the pile on top of it. the Evil Queen's men cuffed their hands behind their backs, leaving them with few ways to defend themselves. The Evil Queen grinned down at Ruby.

"Well, it's nice of you to join us, Little Red Riding Hood."

"It's just Agent Red."

"Right now dear, your name is whatever I want it to be."

"Well in that case," Ruby glance around the room at all the men the Evil Queen had brought. "my, what big teeth you have."

"All the better to eat you with, my dear. Now tell me, where is my mother?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Torture scene in this chapter. Not particularly graphic, but it's there. Indicated from ***/-/-/-/-/*** until the end.**

**Part Four**

_Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation_. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ruby didn't have an obvious tell. They had become more ... familiar to each other over the past few encounters. But that didn't exactly give Regina an extensive knowledge of Ruby's body language. There was no way for the Evil Queen to know that Cora was in the room that Snow and Ruby had just come out of from reading Ruby's body language. But Snow White? Snow White had a huge tell. She glanced towards the room briefly. Someone else might have missed it, but the Evil Queen hadn't. You didn't last as long as she had without having the ability to read the people around you.

The Evil Queen descended the stairs and came to stand in front of where Ruby and Snow were detained. Snow White glowered at her, her gaze turning darker with every step closer she took. The Evil Queen narrowed her eyes at them.

"There's something you're not telling me. You're in no position to refuse me right now."

"Don't go in there." Ruby said quickly before Snow White could say anything at all.

"Why not?"

"Just don't. Please, for your own sake."

"Agent Red, I learnt a long time ago that I am the only person who has my best interest at heart. I do hope you can forgive me for not believing that you want to spare me a thing." The Evil Queen said with a snarl.

Ruby huffed. "I'm sorry that your life has led you to believe that common human decency is a bad thing."

"It has kept me alive."

Snow White scoffed and snarled at the Evil Queen before Ruby could stop her. "It didn't help your mother."

Regina pushed past them and into the room Cora was in. There was no nice way of telling someone their mother had been murdered by their arch nemesis. Ruby had hoped to find the least devastating way, but Snow had ruined that. It wasn't just a matter of human decency though. Ruby wanted her team alive, even if they had pretty much destroyed the mission and disobeyed every order. It was a matter of pride.

The Evil Queen was gone for a very long fifteen minutes and her men's hold on their guns never wavered. Grumpy was the only one stupid enough to try anything with the Evil Queen gone. He was quickly knocked unconscious and handcuffed to the coffee table.

Regina emerged from the room with a stony face. She was well put together, but as she passed by her Ruby could see the faintest smudge lines across her cheeks. She had been crying. Regina clicked her fingers and her men snapped to attention.

"Seat them. Claude, take my mother's body to Frankenstein to prepare for burial."

Some of the Evil Queen's men wandered off deeper into the penthouse coming back with various chairs. Each agent, bar Grumpy, was unceremoniously pushed down to sit on one of the chairs lined up in a neat row in front of the Evil Queen. Claude exited the apartment a few minutes later carrying Cora's body wrapped up in a sheet found deeper in the apartment. She paced back and forth in front of them as she worked the tight leather gloves off her hands. She wore black pants and a black shirt under a bulletproof vest. Tucked into the back of her pants was a small radio receiver. It connected to the ear and mouth piece that hooked around her ear and splayed across her cheek. Regina's go-to weapon, her sniper rifle, was slung across her shoulder and rested against her back with a pistol at her hip.

Ruby squinted at the familiar look of the pistol. It was her service weapon. Regina tucked her leather gloves into her belt and clicked her fingers again. One of her men came forward, holding out a pair of latex gloves that the Evil Queen pulled on with familiar ease. The gloves were longer than most and went up to almost her elbow.

"It took me a while to find a place that sold these particular gloves." she said conversationally. Her eyes flicked up to meet Ruby's. "The normal ones just won't do. Ripping out a person's heart can be so messy at times, particularly when they struggle."

Regina stopped in front of Snow White and Charming. "As I'm sure you've figured out by now, this was a trap and you fell for it. I designed it with you two idiots in mind though, so don't feel too bad."

"Why are you doing this? You could have killed us a long time ago." Charming said with a sneer. "This is a lot of effort just to kill a couple of people."

"I guess it is, but I never wanted to just kill you. I've had the two of you in my rifle's scope more often than I care to think about, but you deserved more than death. For what you took from me I wanted to break both of you before I killed you. I spent so long thinking of the best way to get to you, and then you got married and had a daughter." Regina ran a hand down the barrel of her sniper rifle. "It could have been so easy to just put a bullet through her head, but I couldn't paint her with her parent's sins. You two and you two alone will pay for what you've done."

"We're not alone, you know?" Snow said in a voice much braver than Ruby felt she had the right to. "We've got back up."

Regina laughed. "You mean that pathetic sniper you have in the next building over. He was the first one of you I dealt with. Don't worry dear, he's still alive. A bit banged up, but alive."

She turned her attention to the pile of weapons and cell phones on the coffee table. She picked up Ruby's phone and started flicking through it out of interest. It was her work phone, so there was nothing on it. No call log, no text messages, no photos or web browsing history and no contacts. It was set up to wipe its self at least once a day. Regina dropped the phone and picked up another, flicking through that one as well. She found the same thing.

"My, this has been a long time coming, hasn't it? You see, my dears, I had a plan. It was a good plan, a brilliant plan and it had the two of you suffering for what you've done to me. Then you'd beg me to kill you and I would rip out your hearts." Regina turned to Snow and Charming. "I have to play up to the hype around my name, you understand. And you are my biggest adversaries, everyone knows that. What better way to end you?"

The Evil Queen's hands grazed the guns and knives on the coffee table. She picked up one gun and examined it before doing the same with another. Slowly she moved through the collection like she had with the cell phones. Eventually she picked one up and checked the magazine. It was missing one bullet. The one bullet Cora had been shot with. It wouldn't have been hard for Regina to figure it out. Snow hadn't had another gun on her. Assuming Regina had watched Ruby closely, it would be safe to assume that the gun stuffed into the front of her pants was Snow's.

"Now I think I'll just kill you instead, like I should have a long time ago. I should have killed you the first time I saw you, but instead I decided to go easy on the new agents. I was just a little fish in a big pond at the time; I didn't want to bring myself to your Agency's attention. Maybe if I had killed you then, maybe ... Daniel and my mother would still be alive. Isn't that an interesting thought?"

"We never did anything to you!" Spat Charming. "You came after us, not the other way around."

"You killed Daniel." Regina delivered the statement calmly, as a fact that was beyond doubt.

"Who the hell is Daniel?" Snow snapped.

"Someone shut them up." The Evil Queen snapped.

One of her men came forward. He ripped both of the sleeves off of Charming's long sleeved shirt and tied them into gags.

"Thank you, Keith. Now, I would hate you two idiots to go to your deaths thinking that you're blameless in this whole mess. So let me educate you, God knows someone needs to. Daniel was my fiancé; until you killed him. He was in the house when you blew it up, and he didn't survive. There are a lot of people I blame for that day, and you two are at the very top of the list. My mother may have made sure that Daniel would be caught in the crossfire, but the two of you are the ones that pulled the trigger. Now I'm done explaining myself to you. Good bye Snow White, good bye Charming."

Regina lowered the gun and pressed it against Snow's forehead.

"You don't need them dead." Ruby yelled out quickly.

"Really, Agent Red?" Regina said without turning from Snow. "Is that your professional opinion or just something you've figured out after all the quality time we've spent together? Why are you even here?"

"It's my job."

"Wrong answer!" Regina whirled around, her gun moving from Snow's head. "You're here because you blame me and my men for your partner's death and want revenge for it."

Ruby's breath caught. She had forgotten. After everything she had found out about 'the Evil Queen', she had forgotten about Quinn. She had been too deep, too involved in finding out about Regina's relationship with Snow White and Charming. Ruby had submerged herself so far into the ten year old dispute and for the first time in her life she had lost sight of her goal. She shouldn't care about Snow White and Charming living though this, even if they were part of her team. What she should care about was avenging Quinn. But she didn't, it had turned into so much more. There had been something else that had caught her and taken her on this journey.

Ruby stared at Regina. Her cheeks still had the faintest staining from tears. Ruby gritted her teeth against the truth that had manifested a long time ago but had refused to acknowledge until now. She didn't see her as the Evil Queen anymore. She was Regina Mills, a woman who had lost someone she cared about to Snow White and Charming's stupidity. Ruby didn't blame Regina for a second for wanting blood. It was understandable, almost reasonable in their world of sudden death and violence. Regina had become what she needed to in order to protect herself against the threat of the Agency and Cora.

Regina sneered down at Ruby. "Do not try to talk me out of vengeance when you came after me for the exact same reason."

"Quinn's death may have been the reason I started looking into your past, but it's not the reason I'm here now."

"No?" Regina looked to one of her men. "Bring me Terrence."

The man nodded and left the room via the large elevator across from them. It didn't take long found the sound of the elevator reaching the penthouse floor to ring though the apartment. The doors opened and a man was shoved into the room at gun point by the two men in the elevator with him. They stayed in the elevator, another man coming forward to grab Terrence by the arm and drag him in front of Regina. Two swift whacks to the backs of his knees forced him to kneel. Regina flicked her wrist and Ruby felt someone unlock the handcuffs around her wrists. She was shoved her forward and only just managed to catch herself and not fall flat on her face. Ruby stood in front of Regina, her arms crossed at her chest. Regina drew Ruby's service weapon and held it out. Ruby didn't move.

"Take it, Agent Red."

Ruby reached forward and as soon as she took the gun Regina wrapped her hand around Ruby's wrist. Her grip was deceptively strong and Ruby would have a hard time fighting Regina off if she had tried. Not that she was stupid enough to do anything with all of Regina's men around. Regina tugged her by the wrist until Ruby stood behind Terrence. Regina adjusted her grip on Ruby's wrist so that she was able to walk behind her. She wrapped an arm around Ruby's waist while her other arm held the gun out in the general direction of Terrence's head.

"Allow me to introduce you to Terrence. You met briefly, when he went against my direct orders and killed your partner." Regina hissed into Ruby's ear. "He shot him; right in the forehead if you recall. I suppose it was a quick death, if an unnecessary one. But then we wouldn't be here now if your partner hadn't been killed, now would we? All your work and all those wonderful times we spent together all come down to this, Agent Red. Will you walk away?"

Ruby knew the correct answer, but she paused.

"Yes, I will. Because some things are more important than vengeance. Living the rest of my life without the guilt of Quinn's death is one of those things. It won't bring Quinn back. All it will do is turn me into you, just like your mother turned you into her. If I can't give up a need for vengeance now, what chance do I have to getting over it when this man is dead?"

Quinn was dead. That was a fact and no matter how much his death had hurt, Ruby needed to make sure that she didn't get caught up in it. That sort of road was the one Regina had been walking for a long time.

There was a difference between forgetting that Quinn's death was meant to be her motivation and forgetting him entirely. Ruby would do it though, she would forget him if it was for the best. If it was what was best for her, for Snow and Charming and possibly even what was best for Regina, she would forget.

Regina's arm around Ruby's waist tightened to an almost painful point. Her hand moved, freeing Ruby's wrist but holding onto the gun, Regina's hand over Ruby's. With a small, practised movement Regina slipped her finger onto the trigger and pulled it. Terrence fell onto the floor in a gooey red mess.

"I guess you'll never find out, Agent Red. You'd be lucky to turn out like me. Though, I suppose this does make you the bigger person."

/-/-/-/-/

Regina had never wanted to be her mother. She had rebelled as much as she could against it, cutting all ties with Cora despite the revenue it would have raked in. She had never wanted the criminal life that Cora and Henry led. But the only other option had been for Cora to take over after her father's death. That was something that scared Regina more than being her mother.

The amount of power Cora could have accumulated as both the leading drug and arms dealer in the world was staggering to think about. But there was no chance of that now. The plan had been to have Cora arrested and put into a very dark hole where no one would find her. It would leave Regina on the cusp of a takeover of the Wonderland Crew. Cora's death had changed very little in that regard. But it did allow Regina to make her own choice, not one influenced by Cora.

Cora would never have hesitated all those years ago; she never would have gone easy on the new agents. Snow and Charming would have been dead years ago, torment for the sake of revenge was pointless to her. Cora saw her opponent's death as the ultimate indication that she had won.

Regina was not Cora. She had done much her mother had disapproved of and this was just one more thing to add to the list. Regina let go of Ruby and took a few quick steps back, taking the pistol with her.

***/-/-/-/-/***

"I'm not my mother, Agent Red, but I will have my revenge. Don't turn around or I'll have to shoot you too."

Ruby raised her hands in the air. Regina may not have asked for it, but a small show of faith could very well be the difference between receiving a bullet to the head and not. One of Regina's men moved behind Ruby and cuffed her hands together again. She was led to where her team sat and was shoved to her knees, the giant brute of a man standing directly behind her.

Regina stood in front of Snow White, Ruby's pistol once again holstered at Regina's hip. She pulled a pen out of one of the pockets in her pants and started to gently probe from Snow's jaw to the bottom of her eye. Nodding to herself slightly Regina drew a quick cross along Snow's cheek bone, close to the eye. She then proceeded to do the same to the other side of Snow's face. Snow and Charming struggled to yell at her through their gags. Nothing but indistinguishable murmurs could be heard.

Regina lifted her sniper rifle off of her back and held it securely with the barrel pointed towards the roof. She glared down at Snow.

"This is a kindness. I will not kill you, but you will never fully recover from this and you will never be a field agent again. After this, as far as I'm concerned our feud, if you want to call it that, is over. We will leave each other alone to live what is left of our lives however we wish. I sincerely hope you two agree to those terms because if you start something with me again I will destroy you, if it is the last thing I do."

Regina lifted her rifle and bought the stock down on one of the crosses on Snow's cheek. It cracked under the force and one of Regina's men had to hold Snow's head up. Regina bought the rifle down again, breaking Snow's other cheekbone. Snow had stayed surprisingly quiet, her heavy breathing and tears the only things giving away her pain. Regina moved on quickly to Charming, lowering the barrel of her rifle to press it against his knee cap and pulling the trigger. The blood wasn't visible at first but soon it started to pool around his shoes. Regina reloaded and placed the barrel against Charming's other knee. With the second shot he cried out, gritting his teeth against the gag.

"Someone make sure he doesn't bleed to death. We're leaving. Leave the keys to the handcuffs on the table."

Regina cleaned the barrel of her rifle on Charming's shirt. She flicked the safety on and slug it across her shoulder. She pulled off her latex gloves and shoved them at one of her men before pulling her leather ones back on. She activated her ear piece as she picked up one of the many phones on the coffee table.

"Ten minutes until we exit the building. Snipers keep watch, but only maiming shots from now on. Alpha Team will stay behind until the Agency sends backup. Everyone else will follow the main contingent. As soon as we are out of sight, head to ground. I don't want any agents following me. Keep channels open and keep watch on one another."

Regina dialed a number from memory and held the phone up to her ear. Her eyes locked on Ruby and she smirked.

"Hello dear, I believe you've misplaced a few of your agents. You can pick them up whenever you're ready."

Regina dropped the phone, letting it clatter as it hit the floor. She started towards the elevator, a few men following.

"We're leaving. Until next time, Agent Red. Give your Grandmother my regards."

As soon as the elevator doors closed Regina's men started to move. They picked up and removed anything they had bought with them until the only thing left were Cora's men and the shell casings from the fire fight.


	5. Chapter 5

**Updating a bit early because I was called into work tomorrow, and I know I'd forget otherwise.**

**Part Five**

_The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. - Oscar Wilde_

A month.

They were all given a month off of field work. The exception was Snow White and Charming who were still in hospital and would have to pass various physical tests. The doctors were saying that they would never fully heal. Charming's kneecaps were almost non-existent and Snow had tunnel vision from two broken eye sockets. Even with surgery the chances of a full recovery for either of them wasn't particularly high. Everyone knew it. Everyone but Snow and Charming. Their recovery would come quicker if they believed that there was the possibility they could continue with field work. But, like Regina had wanted, they wouldn't.

Still, a month was a long time. It wasn't meant as a punishment, but rather an assurance that everyone had time to recuperate. Grumpy and Lancelot had been severely reprimanded and Mulan praised. Ruby had sat down with Granny and a nice bottle of scotch to explain everything. Snow and Charming were the worst when it came to following orders, but Grumpy and Lancelot had made their own choices and had to live with the consequences. Just not yet. Any rewards or punishments would wait until after their month of recuperation. After such a disaster of a mission they would all undergo a psych evaluation and physical fitness testing. Everyone was expected to pass; it was just a matter of formality and due process.

Granny was more concerned that Regina had known the number of her office phone line.

It was, considering that the Agency's top agents were out of commission for a month, somewhat lucky that Regina and the Wonderland Crew had been rather quiet. It was also somewhat expected. Regina was efficient, but even she would need some time to fully integrate her arms dealing and the Wonderland Crew. So Ruby set herself up to have a very boring month of paperwork that she tended to leave until she had a free moment. Only the life of an active field agent meant that she never had a free moment. Granny was ecstatic that she would actually get some of Ruby's completed paper work for once. Ruby was almost looking forward to working in the office. At least she would see more of her fellow agents.

Mulan, of course, was not one of those agents because Mulan was a dedicated agent who was always on top of her paperwork. Instead she had was set the task of training some of the newest recruits in hand to hand combat and knife fighting. After two weeks of solid paperwork Ruby had caught up with everything she had been falling behind on. It wasn't that Ruby was bad at paperwork; she just couldn't be bothered with it most of the time. But even Granny was impressed with Ruby's work.

Boredom was certainly an effective motivator. Ruby would have given anything to be able to do something other than paperwork for the next two weeks of her enforced desk duty.

Ruby waited at her desk for an hour, honing her skills at solitaire, while she waited for Granny to load her down with another pile of paperwork. When it didn't come Ruby headed to the gym on the second floor of the office complex. She would be able to expend some energy and laugh at all the newbie agents getting their asses handed to them by Mulan. At the very least it would put her in a good mood.

Mulan was standing with her arms folded while she watched two of the new agents circle each other on the padded sparring mats. They didn't look evenly matched; the large man greatly outweighed the smaller brunette woman.

But if Mulan had put them against each other it meant the woman would be surprisingly good at hand to hand. She was. As the man swung his fist around trying to hit her, the woman ducked under his arm, stepped past him and bought her elbow down on his lower back, hitting his kidney. She spun around and kicked the backs of both of his knees. He dropped him to the ground and she kicked between his shoulder blades. The man fell face first into the mats, clutching his side and groaning. She turned to Mulan and bowed deeply. Mulan scowled. Ruby stepped up beside her.

Ruby smirked. "I like her."

"You're just glad to be doing something that isn't paperwork." Mulan muttered to Ruby before turning back to the two agents on the mats. "Goliath, I put you up against Sleeping Beauty in the hopes that you'd remember not to underestimate your opponent. We all know she's the best hand to hand fighter out of the lot of you. You should fight like you know that. And stop opening your fights with a goddamned haymaker. By now you should all be able to last longer than a few minutes when sparring."

Mulan turned back to Ruby. "So what brings you down here?"

"Like you said, anything but paperwork. I was going to have a go at one of the punching bags and watch your new recruits get yelled at."

"You have a heart of gold, Red. Did you know that?"

Ruby snorted. "Yeah, I get told that all the time."

"Diablo, I want you sparring with Sleeping Beauty. First to five hits, this is just a warm up, so try not to kill each other."

Diablo was a tall woman with a mass of curly blonde hair and matching purple shorts and sports bra. She stepped onto the mats opposite Sleeping Beauty and bounced on the balls of her feet a few times before raising her guard. Sleeping Beauty and Diablo started circling each other. There was no trash talking, just carefully aimed punches and kicks and careful dodges and ducks from both of them. Though Diablo was certainly the more defensive of the two. Sleeping Beauty lowered her guard for a second, allowing Diablo to quickly jab her in the nose. The score changed to four-two to Sleeping Beauty. Ruby was wondering if Diablo would be able to take the match back when she heard the unmistakable thumping footfall of Granny coming up behind her. A folder hit the back of her head with a soft thwack before Granny handed it to her.

"One day you're going to seriously injure me, Granny. And then you'll feel bad for all the times you've brutally attacked me with folders."

Granny snorted. "Doubt it."

"You'll feel bad when I sue."

"You won't sue and you know it. Now get back to your desk and look those over, I need you out on the field in two days."

"What about the psych evaluation and the…"

"Forget it. This is more important. We need to know what she's up to."

Ruby nodded. Thank god she was moving back to field work. Mulan's new recruits weren't nearly as amusing as she had hoped. Sleeping Beauty kicked Diablo in the knee and brought a fist down on her shoulder. At least there seemed to be some decent talent in the most recent intake.

/-/-/-/-/

Ruby would admit that when Granny had sent her back out to the field she had been thinking of gun fights and chasing down the bad guys. Not guard duty in a museum which boasted only five guards at the best of times due to budget cuts. She definitely hadn't been thinking about every guard hitting on her at least once. It was only a week long job though, so Ruby just grinned and took it on the chin while quietly telling them where they could shove it.

Jiminy Cricket gave them the tip off. It wasn't much, but it was enough that Granny wanted someone to cover it. Ruby treated the mission as a standard guard position until she could either confirm or deny a criminal connection. Why the criminal underworld would turn their gaze towards a rather ugly stone vase was beyond her. It could have been made by a Neanderthal and be the first piece of art in existence for all Ruby cared, and it might as well have been. It was just a stupid pot. A stupid pot that Regina was interested in. Possibly interested in. If Regina wanted it, Ruby would stop her from getting it, just as a matter of pride.

Regina was intelligent and rather fearless. But even she wouldn't try to pull off some sort of stunt during the day while the museum had visitors. So Ruby slept days and spent her nights prowling around the museum with two other guards. It was all she could do. Her insistence that the pot be moved somewhere else was met with hostility from the other guards and the head curator, Smee. It sat almost directly underneath a skyline that could open from the outside. Her request to hire more guards was met with the same reaction. It was tiring trying to do your job when no one else seemed to want you to. Surely even the untrained eye had to see how unwise the placement was.

Four days in they had found nothing. But things never stayed quite for too long with Regina involved. She wasn't at all surprised to find one of the guards slumped against the wall with a small bleeding gash across his temple. Once she was sure he wasn't in any danger of dying while he leant against the wall, Ruby dashed down the hall, pulling her gun free as she did so. It was her replacement gun; the one she had received shortly after the Regina stole the first one. So far all it had done was target practice and sit on a table with everyone else's weapons the day Cora died.

Ruby ducked around the corner of the hallway with her gun raised and pointed towards the pot. Regina was standing with the pot in one hand and a gun in another, pointed at Ruby. She gazed at the pot, twisting and turning it in her hand to inspect it from every angle.

"Really, Miss Lucas? Could you have been any louder? I heard you coming a mile away."

"Put the vase down, Regina."

"Technically it's a pot. It has a lid, well it's meant to anyway. It appears to be missing, which severely decreases the value." Regina glanced at Ruby and smirked.

"I'm so sorry. Now put the pot down, Regina."

Surprisingly, Regina did. But her gun was still trained on Ruby. They faced each other, neither of them being willing or even able to fire the first shot.

"I find it interesting that you call me by my name. Do you believe that we are … familiar with each other?"

"If you want me to call you the Evil Queen then you can start calling me Agent Red again."

"Now where's the fun in that, Miss Lucas? It seems, my dear, that we're at a bit of an impasse. I will admit that I didn't think you'd get here so quickly. I propose a … ceasefire of sorts. We both walk away. Me without the pot, and you without a bullet hole in your head. So, with the idea in mind that we both survive the night, will you accept a truce until we next meet?"

"How kind of you."

"You and I both know that one of us will die if we do this right now. We're too good for there to be any other outcome. I think it would do both of us a great disservice to die in a second rate museum over a pot."

"Okay then. Put down your gun." Ruby gave Regina the most politely fake smile she could.

Regina paused, and after a minute flicked on the safety and put her gun down on the floor. It was Ruby's best opportunity to shoot, to end the Evil Queen. She didn't.

"It's been a wonderful time, as always, Miss Lucas. I'll just have to remember to hide the other guards better next time."

She took a few steps back and grabbed a black rope that had been well hidden in the dark room. Regina scaled it and pulled herself over the skyline edge with ease. Ruby holstered her gun. She was getting that damned pot moved to somewhere else in the museum and she was getting more guards for it. At least she had her damn gun back.

/-/-/-/-/

Granny gave her three more agents. It wasn't an army, but the Three Blind Mice - not actually blind mind you - were perfect for night guarding due to their training in pitch black environments. They looked the part too; tall with short and easily maintained hair and stiff black suits. They all worked in shifts to make sure that Regina didn't get another chance at the pot. For three days there was not a whisper of Regina. It only caused Ruby more stress because the only time Regina could make her move was at the auction, mid-morning on the fourth day.

The museum filled up slowly, but there was plenty of interest in the pot. Most people toured the museum before the auction while the head curator tried to weasel donations out of them. Ruby was aware the moment that Regina walked in the front door with one of her body guards at her side. He was the same body guard from the penthouse, Claude. Regina greeted and shook hands with several people until she eventually made her way to Smee. He greeted her with an excited handshake and looked around the room. When his eyes fell on Ruby he waved her over. Ruby made her way to stand next to the pair. She watched Regina carefully, taking in all the possible places for hidden weapons. She didn't appear to be carrying a firearm, nor did her body guard, but that didn't mean that she wasn't. Nor did it mean that Regina was any less dangerous.

"Agent Red! Let me introduce you to the owner of the wonderful piece we're auctioning off today, Ms White. What a find! I can't believe that I've actually seen …"

Regina gently placed a hand on Smee's shoulder and smiled politely at him.

"I know, dear. It was a lucky find."

She held out her hand to Ruby. "Nice to meet you. Thank you for handling security, Agent Red. I appreciate it. Who knows what sort of rabble might have gotten their dirty hands on it without you here to help."

Regina leaned forward, grinning as Ruby reluctantly shook her hand. "People always bid so much more when they see a lot of security for an item. I guess they assume it's worth more."

Ruby narrowed her eyes. It made sense that Regina didn't want the pot. Rather she wanted to make more money when she sold it. In fact it made perfect sense, and it was annoying that Ruby hadn't thought of the possibility earlier.

"I hope you choke on it." Ruby spat quietly so that Smee wouldn't hear.

"Don't be a sore loser, dear. Stick to red, green isn't your colour. Better luck next time."

Regina's polite smile never dropped. Smee led her away to a spare room so that the auction could take place without any seller interference.

Ruby was not looking forward to writing up her report on this mission but there was nothing she could do about it now. There were too many civilians around and there was no way of knowing if Regina was armed despite Ruby looking for guns. Claude was almost definitely armed and it was likely that Regina had the perimeter covered too. Regina never did anything halfway, especially when she had the man power. Regina had played her, and left Ruby with only two options. Let Regina go, or start a shoot up in a populated area. The later was obviously not a real choice, but it did make having to stand down that much more grating. She had been well played. Regina could afford to pay a few large men to stand around on the day of the auction; she could even order a few of her body guards to do it.

This was either a test that Ruby had failed miserably, or Regina's way of proving that she was still several steps ahead of the Agency. Or both. At least they had gotten one thing from it. Regina used 'Ms White' as an alias and a first name wouldn't be hard to find out from the museum.

/-/-/-/-/

Ms 'Grimhilde White' successfully sold her pot, sans lid, for close to twenty thousand dollars. It was valued at fifteen thousand and Ruby was very close to demanding Regina give her a cut of the profit. Instead she started monitoring everything to do with Regina's alias. It was a long five months in which Regina made seemingly random purchases, sales and just general money moving. There had been a lot of money moving around her bank accounts. Even more money left her accounts. Money was transferred into other bank accounts that were so heavily protected that even Archie had trouble with them. So far his reports said he had been stopped at every corner by another hacker who, most likely, worked for Regina.

The first thought had been of money laundering. While not strictly Regina's normal modus operandi; it wouldn't be a new crime for her. Money laundering was often introduced into the larger crime syndicates due to necessity. When you had so many legitimate businesses to cover up your illegal ones, laundering money became much easier. Not to mention doing it yourself meant it became much cheaper. But while money was flowing both in and out of Ms White's accounts, much more was leaving. Three weeks after they started watching the account it closed due to Ms White dying in a car crash. Her money and property moved into a trust controlled by her solicitor to be distributed among those left in the will. Most of the people were nobodies. Just lucky schmucks who would find out their twice removed great grandfather's illegitimate son's adopted daughter had left them a sum of money upon her death.

All except for one person.

Miss Isabella Green, the well-known alias of Tinker Bell. Well-known at least, to a select few and unsurprisingly Regina was one of them. But that didn't matter because Granny was definitely another. What Regina didn't know was that Tinker Bell was in one of the Agency's more secure facilities. Snow and Charming had tracked down Tinker Bell long before their forced retirement.

Tinker Bell had been one of the more prolific assassins in the world before her incarceration. She was the only female assassin to ever join Pan and his Lost Boys. She had encountered Hook shortly after he turned on the Agency and used him for the information he had. They had even joined together for a few jobs, but they were always few and far between to the best of the Agency's knowledge. Working with Hook helped Tinker Bell to stay out of the Agency's reach until she took a job where Hook was the target. In an attempt to save his life, Hook had given up as much information as he could on Tinker Bell. It had worked in his favour. Snow and Charming had arrested Tinker Bell. It was only the fact that Tinker Bell was quite the handful that gave Hook enough time to get away. He had gone into hiding. He had only revealed himself in the past three years, when he joined Regina to become one of her more trusted lieutenants.

Ms White's will was nothing more than a way to pay Tinker Bell off. But with Tinker Bell locked up there was no way she would be able to complete whatever job Regina had for her. It did beg the question of who Regina wanted dead and if Tinker Bell had ever worked for Regina before. Tinker Bell never gave up the names of her targets or employees as a simple matter of professional dignity. But she wasn't an idiot either. On more than one occasion Tinker Bell had given up relatively harmless information about the people she knew in exchange for a more comfortable imprisonment. While helpful on occasion, Tinker Bell had an innate distrust of anything to do with the Agency. The only person she would talk to about these things was Granny, and Granny was more than willing to question her.

Ruby didn't like it because it made Granny a target. Anything that Granny was forced to do or anything that resembled a routine made Ruby uneasy. Ruby always insisted on accompanying Granny along with at least two other agents she picked out so that she could keep an eye on her. Granny only ever complained half-heartedly. She knew as well as Ruby did that having one of her best agents as protection was in the Agency's best interests. Granny didn't complain too much when Ruby fell into step behind her. Ruby had picked Sleeping Beauty and Diablo to accompany Granny and herself to the Agency's more secure prison.

Neverland held some of the most dangerous and prolific criminals in the world. But it also exclusively held prisoners with useful information or those who were too dangerous to be around other people. Tinker Bell was one of the latter. She had already escaped three different maximum security prisons in her life and every escape had at least five fatalities.

While Granny was a target, she wasn't in a lot of danger in Neverland. There were multiple people who would fall on their metaphorical swords for her. It was an excellent way to give two newly trained agents an experience with one of the bigger names in the crime business. If they could stare down Tinker Bell then they would prove that they had earned the high regard that Mulan held for them. Mulan had personally partnered Sleeping Beauty and Diablo together. She expected them to become quite the useful duo for the Agency.

There were no windows in Tinker Bell's room, just a heavy metal door with a slot for food. The rest of the room was quite bare. A single bed, a toilet and a few books stacked next to the bed. Each day she was led under heavy guard to the showers and then back to her cell. No chances were taken. As much as slitting throats was Tinker Bell's calling card, she was just as efficient at killing in other methods. There had been three escape attempts during her captivity in Neverland. Luckily back up had always been close at hand and no one had died. Only one guard had medical leave to recover from the gouges along his throat.

The door slammed shut once Granny, Ruby, Sleeping Beauty and Diablo entered Tinker Bell's room. There was barely enough room for everyone, but it was much too risky to move Tinker Bell anywhere. It was safer this way.

Tinker Bell sat cross-legged on her bed as she watched Granny carefully.

"The Evil Queen tried to pay you a few days ago, Tinker Bell."

Tinker Bell looked away from Granny and at Ruby for a second before looking at Sleeping Beauty and Diablo.

"They're new. You don't normally bring new people to see me. What happened to the charming agents you used to bring?" A grin spread along Tinker Bell's face. "Oh right, I remember now. Their mistakes finally caught up with them."

Granny didn't react, nor did Ruby. Neither Sleeping Beauty nor Diablo knew enough about Snow White and Charming's fates to have a reaction.

"I don't care if she has used your services before, what I want to know is who the Evil Queen wants dead now. Do you have any idea what she's up to, Tinker Bell?"

"Of course." Her grin widened. "Today is the day I get out of this damn cell and start working again. It was a trick, of course. A trick to get you here with the right people in the right places. She knew that the moment you realised she was trying to contact me you'd come and question me."

Ruby turned as quickly as she could to slam her hand on the door and get it opened from the outside. Diablo's fist swung and hit Ruby as she was turning, knocking her back a few steps. Diablo grabbed Sleeping Beauty by the back of the head and turned her around until she was facing the wall. Sleeping Beauty didn't have a chance to fight back before her head met the wall multiple times. Diablo threw her to the ground where she lay bleeding and unmoving. Ruby grabbed Granny and shoved her behind her and into a corner so that she could defend an attack from either Tinker Bell or Diablo.

"So this was a setup? You're a double agent?" Granny asked coldly.

Normally new agents were screened better, but there was always the chance of a double agent getting in. Especially considering how easily Regina had kept her identity a secret for so many years.

Diablo hummed and pulled a small box out of her pocket and chucked it at Tinker Bell. She pulled up her shirt and unstrapped a much larger, but thinner box from her stomach. Tinker Bell pulled out an ear piece and paused only for a second before sliding it into her ear.

"Do you read me, Mirror?" Diablo said suddenly. She pulled the larger box apart revealing several rows of switches. She fiddled with something at the top of the box and pulled, extending the antenna.

"Good." Diablo said, still looking like she was talking to herself. It was clear, however that she had an ear piece just like Tinker Bell.

"Green is online and everything is armed. Update the Queen and then keep radio silence unless there is a change in the plan. Dragon out."

Diablo faced Ruby and Granny.

"It was a setup, yes. Tinker is too valuable an asset for Queenie to leave in your hands. But I can't say I ever really saw myself as a double agent. It just doesn't feel like the right sort of title. Maybe a sleeper cell? What do you think?"

"Right now I'm thinking you're a little unsound and about five minutes away from being shot." Ruby said flippantly.

"Perhaps." Diablo murmured, "Now, we're going to walk out of here and you're going to come with us. You're going to reassure everyone that Tinker Bell is allowed out of her cell. Otherwise I flick one of these switches."

Ruby's hand itched for her gun, but bringing weapons in the same room as a highly trained assassin was just asking for trouble. All side arms were checked at the first security check point upon entering Neverland.

"And what do those switches do?" Ruby snarled.

Granny just sighed and spoke before Diablo could answer.

"You're an explosives expert. So where is it? Where have you planted the bomb?"

"Bombs, there's more than one. They're mainly here and at headquarters, but there are a fair few in other places as well. There is a car waiting for us and once we reach it this" Diablo wiggled the switches in her hand, "can be all yours. I'll even throw in blueprints telling you where I placed all the bombs."

"And once Tinker Bell's free how much damage will she do?"

"Not as much as I will right now if you refuse to cooperate. Queenie thought twenty four bombs was a little extreme but I'm the explosives expert, not her. Tinker Bell will be controlled, and if she decides to act out, well then she won't be anybody's problem and she knows that. So, will you cooperate?"

Tinker Bell rolled her eyes and gestured rudely towards Diablo.

"On two conditions; one of my guards is allowed to get a doctor to check Sleeping Beauty out, and your inside man leaves with you." Granny bargained.

Diablo widened her eyes, giving a look of innocence. "What inside man?"

"Don't even try it. Someone had to let you through with that trigger strapped to you and whoever it is I want them out of my Agency today."

"Fine."

"Then we have a deal."

"Granny…" Ruby whispered harshly.

"No. I need to do this. I can't risk that many lives for her." Granny spat, waving a hand in Tinker Bell's direction. "I have a duty to my agents and to the people we protect. She's not worth risking their lives. Now move Sleeping Beauty to the bed and we'll get out of here."

Ruby did as Granny asked, picking up Sleeping Beauty under Diablo and Tinker Bell's watchful eyes. She placed her as gently as possible on the bed before slamming her fist on the door, alerting the guards that their visit had finished.

"Granny goes first, I go last. The two of you walk side by side between us."

Diablo shrugged. "Whatever makes you happy, Red."

"Agent Red. Remember that."

The door opened from the outside and Granny exited the room.

"Now move, let's not have this take any longer than it needs to."

Tinker Bell huffed but followed Diablo out. "I'm a free woman and she still makes me feel like a prisoner."

Granny was glaring at the guard who had let them out when Ruby passed through the doorway.

"It's not your job to ask questions, agent. It's your job to follow my orders. Now go get the doctor and keep your mouth shut."

The agent nodded, properly chastised and ran to do Granny's bidding. No one else questioned them as they left the building. Granny had a wicked glare. After various rushed security check points they found themselves outside of Neverland. Diablo had reluctantly let Ruby and Granny pick up their side arms to prevent looking anymore suspicious. Neverland was fronted by a rather nondescript warehouse, and there was normally next to no traffic in the area. But there, parked next to the curb, was a sleek black car that Ruby was familiar with. Diablo led Tinker Bell towards it and opened the back door for her. She paused briefly to place the control switches and the blue prints on the footpath before sliding into the back of the car.

Granny glanced at Ruby. "Evil Queen?"

"Yeah, and I'm a little concerned about whatever plans she has that involves Tinker Bell. Obviously she's been planning this for a while if Diablo was a double agent. But what does Tinker Bell offer her that The Lost Boys or someone else doesn't."

"You think she's planning something?"

"She's always planning something. She's too prideful not to have several different plans going on at once."


	6. Chapter 6

**Part Six**

_Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. ― Leo Buscaglia_

Regina was the only one in the whole restaurant who didn't jump or scream when Ruby led the assault team into The Gingerbread House during the lunch rush. Why they were in a restaurant in Germany, only Regina seemed to know. Jiminy had dug up enough information to tell the Agency that Regina would be meeting with someone to talk over a series of deals. Nicholas and Ava had been happy enough to try and help. They had placed bugs at the table reserved for Regina and offered the use of the restaurant's surveillance system.

There hadn't been enough time to round up a team. Other agents were following other leads and that meant that they were even farther away than Ruby was. She had run to the airport without any gear as it was just to catch a flight in time. As a result, Ruby needed to rely on the local law enforcement. The Agency didn't like mixing with the local law, because their tactics were not always strictly legal. But what did you expect when you dealt with some of the biggest criminal masterminds in the world? In this instance it was the only way to get enough bodies to lead an assault team.

It was a half-baked strategy that had no chance of working. Regina would not remain in custody for long. She probably wouldn't even be charged. But what they could do was find out who she was meeting with and stop the meeting.

Whoever Regina was meeting with didn't turn up though. She asked for her bill and Ruby knew that they were out of time. She had flown six hours to get Regina, and Ruby wasn't going to go home with nothing. She needed to accomplish something, even if it was just the possibly of scaring off the other party indefinitely. Or disrupting Regina's plans.

Just as the bus boy gave Regina her credit card back Ruby pushed open the restaurant door with a loud thud. Regina barely glanced at her, slipping her credit card into her purse.

"Agent Red. What a nice surprise."

"Not for long."

Regina gave Ruby at pitying look. "It was never nice, dear. I was simply being polite. I thought even you would pick up on that. Now what is this about?"

"Regina Mills, you're under arrest for suspicion of arms dealing." Ruby said while pulling a pair of handcuffs from her belt. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your choice."

Regina laughed lightly and stood up, presenting her hands behind her back to be cuffed.

"I've never been accused of being easy, Agent Red. But for you I'll make an exception. Come now, do hurry up. This farce has already taken up too much of my time."

Ruby clicked the cuffs into place. "Well I'm sorry to say it's going to take up a lot more of your time."

"Not as much as you'd think, Agent."

Regina let Ruby guide her through the stares of restaurant patrons and officers alike. Ruby deposited her in the back of a marked police cruiser before slamming a hand down on the roof and heading off to her own car. For Regina the car ride was quiet. The police officer driving her only glanced back a few times to make sure she wasn't trying to escape.

Ruby was waiting outside of the local prescient when the cop car ferrying Regina pulled up. She opened the door and lifted Regina out of the car by her upper arm before marching her down to an interrogation room. Regina sat perfectly poised in the uncomfortable metal chair.

All she did was sit. Sit and stare at the off-white wall that was much closer to grey due to a layer of grime. Ruby did much the same. She lent against the wall in the corner of the room. She watched Regina quietly while various officers tried to play good cop, bad cop with her. Finally, Regina reacted. She wrinkled her nose the moment the 'bad cop' leant into her personal space to yell at her.

"Really, dear. You need to invest in some mouth wash."

The officer's mouth snapped closed and Ruby gently pushed him away from the table. She took a seat opposite Regina.

"You've decided to talk."

"Once again, Agent Red, your skills of observation astound me. The things they must teach you at the Agency are mind blowing."

"No need to be rude, Regina. Just because you've been arrested…"

"This isn't an arrest," Regina snapped. "This is just an annoying waste of time, Agent Red. Couldn't you just drop the charges? Then at least we'd both have our afternoons back to do as we wished."

"No, Regina. I'm not dropping the charges."

"What if I offered you something?"

"That depends. Is it a confession to your rather large itinerary of crimes?"

"Don't be silly. Then you'd be out of a job. What kind of a gift is that? I could proposition you with sexual favours. That always seems to work in the movies."

The two officers in the room jerked their eyes to Ruby and back to Regina.

"This isn't the movies, Regina. Also, that never works in the movies."

"It does so. You're clearly watching the wrong movies." Regina huffed before titling her head and grinning wickedly. "Well, we could always just have sex. At least it would pass the time."

"You're a classy lady, Regina. Did you know that?"

"You're saying you wouldn't do me?"

"I'm saying that you're a common criminal, and I'm the agent that just arrested you."

"Firstly, there is nothing common about me. And secondly, that sounds like the synopsis of a porno, not a reason not to sleep with me."

"Is your ego really that easily bruised?"

"No, but while we talk about sex you're not asking questions. And every second you have to ask me anything is ticking down quickly. Because guess what? You decided to do this legally and involved the day to day cops. You should have kidnapped and tortured me for information in some underground bunker. But you didn't, so I have rights and I have exercised those rights and gotten myself a lawyer. He will take one look at your reason for arrest and tell you it is a bullshit charge and have me freed in a matter of minutes."

"Would you like your phone call then?"

"Of course not, Agent Red. Just because you were so desperate to pull outsiders into this little game of cat and mouse doesn't mean that I was."

There was a knock on the door and Ruby stood to answer it. In came another officer escorting an older business man. Ruby raised an eyebrow.

"And you are?"

"Albert Spencer, Ms Mills' lawyer. Now, shall we discuss the preposterous charges you've laid against her?"

It took Albert Spencer all of ten minutes to have the station agree to let Regina go. Their evidence, while enough for the Agency to make a move, wasn't enough for the local law enforcement. All charges were dropped, much like Ruby had thought they'd be.

One of the cops moved to stand behind Regina and unlocked her cuffs. She gently brought wrists in front of her and rubbed them, very much looking the part of the put out victim of police brutality.

"I guess next time I'll just bring agents along and drag you off to the torturing from the get go."

"You certainly know how to sweet talk a lady, Agent Red. But just because this way didn't work it doesn't mean you should go for the exact opposite." Regina placed her hands firmly on the table and leant across it to place her face in Ruby's. "After all, then you'd have to protect every single agent I ever came across during my stay in your care. It wouldn't do for my identity to become common knowledge. And if you don't think I'd be able to find them all, then you haven't been paying attention."

Albert placed a hand on Regina shoulder and she straightened up, giving Ruby a bright but fake smile.

"Of course this is all hypothetical. I'd never partake in anything illegal. What would my mother say?"

"Probably 'bravo'."

Regina titled her head to the side and stared at Ruby for a long, silent moment. "Perhaps. I guess I'll never know. Good day, Agent Red."

She gestured Albert out of the room and soon followed him.

"See you around, Regina. I hope I didn't interrupt your plans too much."

"Nothing I can't come back from dear." Regina said as she paused in the doorway. "Until our next date. It will be thrilling I'm sure."

/-/-/-/

Three hours later and Regina was out of the country. Ruby had spent most of that time in her hotel room alternating between looking through the security tapes and calling Jiminy Cricket. Jiminy wasn't answering his phone and the security tapes didn't showed anyone suspicious at the restaurant. They were running out of resources and Ruby still hadn't found anything. No one who came near Regina. No one who left early or suddenly. No one stuck out as looking particularly 'here to do deals with a criminal mastermind', and neither Nicholas nor Ava could remember seeing anyone new. They lived in a smaller town and knew almost everyone aside from Regina.

It took two days for Ruby to reach Jiminy Cricket. In that time she had already investigated a mysterious fire at Nicholas and Ava's restaurant. It had clearly been a case of arson, possibly even Regina's work. But there would be no way to connect it to her as she had been long gone.

"I'm a little busy right now, Agent Red." Jiminy said with a small huff, as if he was out of breath.

"Jiminy I just need to know who else was going to turn up to that meeting with the Evil Queen."

"It's really not my place to say."

"Jiminy! You were the one who gave me the lead in the first place."

"I know and I really shouldn't have." Jiminy sighed. "I try to stay under the radar most of the time because I know how this world works, Agent Red. I know what will get me killed and what won't and I knew when I was helping you that I was on the edge. I just didn't realise how close to the edge."

"Jiminy, are you okay?"

"I'll survive."

"You've been gone the last couple of days, you want to tell me about that?" Ruby prompted.

"I simply had a reminder about self-preservation. I will no longer help you dig up information on the Evil Queen, Agent Red. Call me when you take on another mission."

/-/-/-/

After a month of dead ends and no one knowing anything, Ruby was more than glad to be ordered back to headquarters. She had known after the first week that whoever was meeting Regina had disappeared or never turned up in the first place. No matter how hard Ruby had searched, nothing had turned up. Ruby even cross referenced footage from the restaurant with security footage at nearby airports. There hadn't been a single match. Even Belle's facial recognition programme couldn't find anyone out of place in the restaurant. Whoever Regina had or had not met with was like a ghost. All things considered, it was probably why Regina had been meeting with them in the first place.

Ruby did find a promising lead on the arsonist. Unfortunately the only video footage of their person leaving was fuzzy and their only witness had been a blind woman. The man was arrested and pleaded guilty when a search found an empty gas can in his car. No one believed him to be anything more than the fall guy. It had been a shallow victory for Ruby, even more so for Nicholas and Ava.

Ruby would take what she had, and hope like hell that Regina's arrest had the desired effect. If they were lucky Ruby had stalled Regina's plans. If they were really lucky the deal of meeting had permanently ended. It wasn't likely, but it was something.

/-/-/-/

Belle had been almost completely assigned to tracking down Regina, and Ruby was helping in any way possible. The whole operation had been rather hit and miss. The idea was to create a computer programme that tracked Regina's movements. The hope was that the Agency would know where Regina was at any given moment. Belle was the best programmer the Agency had. Mixed with the fact that she had extensive knowledge about the criminal world, she was the only person able to build the system. Once Belle was confident that her programme would track Regina, she could train others on how to use it. She preferred to spend her time inventing gadgets.

It hadn't been easy. Regina had been all over the world, making it harder for Belle to pin point her when she needed to. Ruby spent her time following leads about sightings of Regina to prove or disprove them. Over several months Ruby had only made contact with Regina a few times.

The first time one of Belle's errands proved fruitful led Ruby into a rather seedy part of town. Rather than seeing Regina, Ruby noticed her car opposite the bar Regina was supposedly inside of. After a long stake out, Regina's presence was confirmed when she left the bar. She shoved a rather large wad of money into her coat pocket, a tall dark haired man following behind her. They both entered the car and disappeared into the night.

There were a series of places that Belle's programme had picked up Regina's presence that turned out to be false alarms. After the fifth false alarm Ruby became slightly skeptical about Belle's programme. She was about to call Belle and inform her that the lead had once again been a waste of time when she saw it.

The old lady sitting on the train opposite her looked nothing like Regina. Different hair and eye colour, different bone structure, different chin and a nose far to large for her face. But she had the same lips, the same smirk, and the same familiar scar in the exact same place. They were almost completely alone in the train compartment. Only a teenage couple at the other end of the compartment was there to witness Ruby move to sit next to the other woman.

"So, what did you do to Jiminy Cricket?"

"I'm sorry, dear?"

Ruby raised an eyebrow. She would admit the farce was impressive. Regina had gone the full nine yards. Not only was the disguise amazing, but she also spoke at a higher pitch with a slight tremor. Ruby made a show of glancing over Regina.

"You didn't exactly age gracefully."

Regina spoke in her normal voice, rolling her eyes at Ruby. "That's what happens when you age forty years in half an hour. Good spotting by the way."

"Half an hour? That's impressive."

"I know. It takes practice."

"What devious plan of yours requires you to be an old lady anyway?"

"I was just visiting a friend. His father hasn't been too happy with our association ever since he found out what I do. Nothing against me you understand, but he doesn't want his son involved."

"That's sweet. Now why don't you answer my question of what you did to Jiminy."

Regina folded her hands in her lap and stared out the train window for a few seconds before facing Ruby. "Only because you know how to compliment a lady, Miss Lucas. Jiminy Cricket is a certain type of man and that makes him easy to deal with."

"What type of man is that?"

"He is a selfish man, but he is also a coward. It does not make for a pretty combination. He lived his childhood and a fair few years of his adult life under his parent's rule. They were … con artists, nothing more than two bit criminals that stole enough to live from day to day and not much more. That was the world he grew up in. Jiminy was smarter than them in many ways, and eventually he figured out that to start a new life he needed to get rid of them. Unfortunately for Mummy and Daddy Cricket, he came to this realisation at a bad time. They were planning on faking their deaths and having him collect on a life insurance policy. Only they didn't plan for their deaths to be quite so permanent. Jiminy certainly did, he was the one to think up the finer details of the plan after all."

The train started to slow down and Regina gathered the large handbag sitting next to her feet into her lap.

"You may call him Jiminy Cricket, but we call him the Puppeteer. All I did was remind him that I am not a puppet for him to play with." Regina stood and headed towards one of the doors, Ruby close on her heels. "He may control puppets, but I control much more." With a swing of her arm Regina's large handbag collided with Ruby's abdomen. She stumbled backwards and fell onto one of the cabin's seats. The train door slid shut before she could get back up with Regina standing on the station platform. She blew Ruby a kiss before the train lurched forward to take Ruby to the next stop. Ruby ignored the teenagers sniggering at her as she stood up. She gently placed a hand on her stomach. It felt tender from whatever Regina had kept in the bag. It felt like bricks.

Ruby waited for the next stop before getting off the train and hailing a cab to take her back to where she had parked her car. Once safely tucked away from most prying eyes Ruby gently unzipped the handbag.

Well, she had been wrong. It wasn't bricks. It was blocks of wood. Sitting at the bottom of the bag was a small note. 'Enjoy the wood. –Pinocchio'

Who the hell was Pinocchio?

/-/-/-/

Ruby sat on the roof of the building. From her position she could make out Gus and Stealthy waiting one building over and still see into most of the warehouse where the arms deal was going down. While it wasn't confirmed that Regina was involved, Ruby had already sighted one of her lieutenants, Hook. Hook was high on the Agency's wanted list and he knew it, which meant he would fight tooth and nail to not be caught. Luckily for him this was not a capture mission and Ruby would not be focussing on apprehending him. Still, it would be a nice bonus.

Ruby felt rather than heard Regina's appearance on the roof top. There was something about the woman that made you pay attention to her. Ruby didn't turn, but moved her hand to rest near her side arm.

"You just have to give me the name of your beautician. They've done wonders."

"You wouldn't know dear, you haven't looked at me yet."

Ruby still didn't look away from her binoculars. Capturing Regina was important, but so was stopping a quarter of a million dollars' worth of automatic weapons hitting the streets of North America. The buyers of the deal would sell exclusively to the gangs and that would cause all sorts of trouble for anyone in law enforcement. Even Regina at the top of the Agency's wanted list didn't top this meeting. At the end of the day Ruby knew that she and Regina would have more encounters. The guns wouldn't, at least not one that Ruby would walk away from.

Ruby glanced back at Regina before looking through her binoculars again. "I maintain my statement. Why are you here?"

Belle's programme was on the fritz again. Their last 'sighting' of Regina said that she was in London, not this small town in Maine.

"I'm here to stop you."

Ruby's hand twitched a tad closer to her gun. "But you brought no back up to enforce this endeavour."

While Ruby had seen Regina without her bodyguards before, it wasn't a normal occurrence. In fact, aside from when Regina had appeared before Ruby sans guards at the museum ball it was unheard of. Logically the Agency had always assumed she spent some time alone, just not when it came to work. There was safety in numbers, and really large men with large guns that followed your every order.

"I thought I'd try asking nicely."

Ruby jerked her head to look at Regina. "While a novel idea, it's not your normal MO."

"I'm well aware of my reputed modus operandi. I thought convincing you may require a more tempered hand than I would normally employ."

"Forget it, Regina."

"You have two men with you. You're out numbered and out gunned."

"I've faced worse odds before. And we both know you don't like your men killing off our agents."

"They're not my men."

"Hook is your lieutenant. That's a well-known fact."

"He used to be, but not anymore."

Ruby shook her head as she slid her binoculars into the pouch on her belt and drew her pistol and aimed it at Regina.

"I'm afraid I don't believe that for a second. Now put your hands behind your back."

Regina scowled but turned and presented her wrists to Ruby without a fight.

"Fine. You don't believe me and that's fine. But at least ask yourself how I knew you'd be here."

"I thought you were stalking me, to be honest."

"Far from it, dear. You're not that special. I've been inside your Agency's computers for the last five years. All it takes is one little breach and I spread through your systems like a virus. I know everything, and what I know is that Stealthy and Gus won't be enough."

Ruby tightened the zip ties around Regina's wrists until she was sure they'd hold. "We'll manage. Good night, Regina."

Ruby holstered her pistol and quickly made her way to the roof access already talking on the com link between her, Stealthy and Gus.

"Ruby!"

Ruby paused for a second before throwing the roof access door open and disappearing down the stairs. She was never sure what Regina was planning and this time was no different.

"Ruby! Please."

She couldn't be sure what Regina was asking for. Perhaps for her to listen. Perhaps for her to come back. Or perhaps she just had too much pride to believe she couldn't convince Ruby to do whatever she wanted.

/-/-/-/

The situation was as Regina had described it. Hook had ten men with him and when his buyer entered the number would double. The buyer never even had the chance to enter the building. Ruby was going to nip the arms deal at the bud. She gave the order and the three of them entered the room. Their first shots hit their targets but one of Hook's men also got in a good shot. Gus to fell to the ground in pain. Stealthy hadn't fared much better. He took a bullet to the shoulder shortly after Ruby had managed to pull Gus behind one of the larger shipping containers. It hadn't bled as much as Gus' wound but it had stopped him from using his dominant hand. It was commendable that he kept firing, though his shots did nothing more than ensure that Hook's men stayed at bay. But bullets always ran out and where Hook's men literally had a case of weapons, Ruby did not.

One of the large glass skylines shattered just as Hook raised his gun to Ruby. A bullet pierced his wrist, causing him to drop his gun. Another two bullets quickly shredded through the palm of his hand. Despite the pain he must have been in, Hook managed to growl at his men to retreat. He cradled his hand to his chest as he left. Hook's men tried to collect the weapon case, but the case was too large to be carried by just one man. Ruby had used her last few bullets to discourage anyone from approaching the case. Ruby, Gus and Stealthy were left alone in the warehouse with the rather large case of weapons. Ruby kept pressure on Gus' wound while Stealthy called for an ambulance and back up.

Once Gus and Stealthy were taken to the hospital, the police officers helped Ruby load the weapon cache into her car. It was a long trip back to Headquarters to secure the weapons. When time allowed she would check in on Gus and Stealthy. They would be moved to the Agency's infirmary as soon as their conditions were stable. But until then Ruby knew that Granny would keep her updated.

/-/-/-/

It took Regina a week to turn up at Ruby's favourite coffee shop. She gently took Ruby's elbow, conscious of the torn muscle in Ruby's shoulder. It had taken damage when Ruby had dragged Gus to safety while still firing. It took the surgeons at the hospital all night to remove the bullet practically imbedded in Gus' spine. As far as she was concerned, she had gotten off easy. Regina led her into the employee break room out the back. Regina jerked her head towards the door and the employee sitting and eating his lunch quickly scurried outside.

"If you're here to tell me that you warned me about it, you can just leave. I don't want to hear it." Ruby growled.

She fought the urge to pull away from Regina. She didn't want to damage her shoulder any more than it already was. She was stuck on desk duty until the doctor said he was happy with it. Ruby wouldn't be able to convince him to lie about her progress in their next appointment to get her out on the field prematurely. Granny had even had a 'talk' with him to make sure of that.

Regina took a few steps away from Ruby and ran a critical eye down her body, taking in how she favoured her shoulder.

"I did warn you and you should have listened to me, but that's not why I am here. I'm here to tell you that you need to stop beating yourself up about it."

"Two men are hurt because of me. I think I'm …"

Regina raised a finger to stop Ruby's protests. "Hurt, not dead. Considering the circumstances you did well."

"Well? One of those men won't ever walk again."

"But he will live. Don't underestimate the value of a life, Ruby. It's the most precious thing any of us have."

"You called me Ruby." Ruby scowled and looked away from Regina.

"Yes, how observant of you."

"Not now, I mean before, when you were trying to convince me to leave Hook alone."

"It is your name dear; please tell me you had your head checked when you were at the hospital."

Ruby glared at Regina. "You've never called me that before. You always call me 'Agent Red' or 'Miss Lucas'."

"Don't forget about 'Little Red Riding Hood'."

"I'm being serious, Regina! Why did you call me Ruby?"

Regina was silent for a moment.

"Maybe I wanted you to listen to me and believe me for once. Maybe I wanted you to know that I was being serious. There is only so far I am willing to take the games we play. Your death is far beyond that line." She said softly.

"How am I meant to believe you when you spend your spare time running circles around me making me look like an idiot? You've told me that you have hacked into the Agency's computer system and then what? What did you expect me to do? How am I meant to know the difference between when you're helping me and when you're sabotaging me? They look a lot alike. I don't know when the game ends for you."

"I guess you'd best learn to catch up then because I'm not going to start playing by your rules just to make you feel better."

"You're so frustrating!" Ruby snapped as she turned away from Regina. She ran a hand through her hair, trying to calm herself.

"You wouldn't have me any other way."

"Fuck off, Regina. For once in your life, give me a straight answer."

Regina grinned and took a few steps closer to Ruby. "There are different sorts of fucking that we could be indulging in that are much more fun and a lot less straight, so to speak."

Ruby narrowed her eyes. Her body was almost vibrating with a heavy combination of conflicting emotions. Quickly she turned around and grabbed the back of Regina's head and mashed their lips together in a rough kiss. Regina responded, twisting her fingers in Ruby's hair and pulling her closer with a hand on her hip. Regina started to walk Ruby backwards towards the couch tucked neatly into the corner of the room. She helped to lower Ruby to lie on the couch without straining her shoulder.

"God, I knew you were just a big sap." Ruby said the moment they separated to settle more comfortably on the couch.

Regina lifted herself off of Ruby and stared down at her. "What?"

"What was it you said? 'A life the most precious thing any of us have.' You're a big softy, waxing philosophical at me in my hour of need. And then you're all concerned about my shoulder. Softy!"

Regina climbed off of Ruby, purposefully digging her knee into Ruby's stomach. Ruby grunted and tried to shove Regina off her, but ultimately failed when Regina just slapped her hands away as she stood up.

"Fine, no teasing about you being a softy."

Regina smiled slightly. She gently levered Ruby up into a sitting potion on the couch.

"I hope that next time you can believe me, Ruby. I don't want to hurt or mislead you."

Ruby's breath hitched. Next time. Of course there would be a next time. At the end of the day she was still Agent Red and Regina was still very much a wanted criminal. The past few minutes had been a mistake.

"I don't believe I gave you permission to call me that." Ruby said coldly. "Good bye, Regina. I'm sure the next time I see you will be far too soon."

Regina was toxic; people were always hurt around her. Quinn had only been the beginning and if Ruby had her way Gus and Stealthy would be the last.

"So you can call me Regina and I can't call you Ruby?"

"Would you prefer me to call you the Evil Queen?"

"No." Regina said with a frown. "I'm not that person anymore."

"Well good for you. But I'm still an Agent and I still have an oath to uphold." Ruby pushed the door open hard, making it slam against the wall as she stormed out. It would have been more dramatic if Ruby hadn't instantly felt a surge of regret.


	7. Chapter 7

**Responses would be great, because I'm writing the sequel as we speak. Who do you want to see more of? Who do you want to see less of? Who do you just want to see at all?**

**Only one more chapter after this, and then you have to give me time to finish the sequel.**

**Part Seven**

_To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved. - George MacDonald_

Ruby sat with Granny on one of the few nights were neither of them were working. Granny had cooked Ruby her favourite foods. In another life she was sure Granny would have been a cook, or owned a restaurant. Something like that. Ruby sipped her wine. She didn't often indulge, but Granny's was one of the most secure places on earth.

"What did you do when Anita decided to join her mercenary gang?"

Granny hummed softly.

"That's the problem with us Lucas women. We know one very important fact. Just because you do bad things, it does not mean you're a bad person. We know a good person from a bad one and we'll give a lot of chances. I can't tell you how many times I let Anita get away with things I should have arrested her for."

"Why did you let her go so much? Why did you put your pride and your reputation aside for her?"

"Despite all of her faults, and she had a fair few, she was my daughter." Granny said softly. "And I loved her."

/-/-/-/

Regina had gone dark. There had not been a single mention of the Evil Queen's actions in months. Her organisation certainly continued to function, just without her. It just didn't function to the high level of standard that Regina had insisted upon. People were starting to make mistakes. She was absent in all drug deals despite the fact that she had definitely taken over the Wonderland Crew upon Cora's death. And that was when deals were being made. Other organisations were buying less and any deals that went through were easier to get news about. Apparently the complete secrecy between buyer and seller that Regina had enforced was a thing of the past. As a result the Agency monitored and interrupted more deals. It reeked of carelessness. More than anything else, the carelessness proved that Regina was not running the arms and drugs trade like she used to.

Even Belle's tracking system hadn't been able to pick Regina up. As soon as Ruby had told Granny about Regina having access to their computer system the whole system was scrubbed clean. Any potential holes were patched up and tagged to be monitored. Unfortunately, while performing the clean-up Belle had been preoccupied. She hadn't been monitoring her tracking system. One of Regina's people completely ripped the system apart. Belle was a brilliant inventor, and a great programmer but she was not a hacker. When a full on attack against one of her systems took place there was next to nothing she could do to stop it. In the end she had diverted the clean-up team to try and push the intruder out. But the damage was done. The tracking system was gone and would take months to recover.

With Regina gone to ground, Ruby moved onto other missions until someone found a lead. Finding a lead was easier said than done because Jiminy was still refusing to dig up anything on Regina. Ruby still busted weapons and drug transfers run by Regina's lieutenants, but she was taking on a range of jobs. Most of them were completely unrelated to Regina.

One job in particular had Ruby in the middle of King Midas' largest casino to watch over a new informant the Agency had picked up. Keith, formerly known as the Sheriff of Nottingham, had information on Rumpelstiltskin. He had been working for Rumpelstiltskin until recently. Keith owed more to the man than he could ever repay in one lifetime. He could slowly try to repay his debt for the rest of his life, or he could turn on Rumpelstiltskin. The only problem with turning on Rumpelstiltskin though was that you were instantly a target. Rumpelstiltskin did not take well to betrayal. He had earned a rather violent reputation by removing the tongues of those who spilled his secrets. Ruby's job was to keep Keith alive, which should have been easy enough to do. Pick him up and take him to the nearest safe house to find out what Keith knew before faking his death and setting him up with a new life. Only Keith was less than happy to leave Midas' casino where he was winning quite a lot of money. If she could, Ruby would just drag him out of there. But Rumpelstiltskin already had a man inside who would use the commotion to kill Keith before any secrets could be spilled.

Ruby wasn't dressed up for a night at the casino, but her work clothes were formal enough for her to be let in. She stuck out, though not as much as the tourists wandering through the tables. Most people would peg her as some sort of detective or private investigator with a gambling problem. It was a story cliché enough that people wanted to believe it. Once Ruby realised that Keith was going to be a problem she made up a plan. A quick transfer of money from the Agency and Ruby was playing poker at a table as just another gambler. The table was relatively full and no one would bother her there. The buy in was a quarter of a million. Not the largest table in the casino, but probably the largest on the main floor. It also offered the best vantage point to watch Keith as played the casino's main attraction; the largest roulette table in the city.

The blonde woman next to Ruby chuckled as Keith won yet another roulette spin. Ruby glanced at her but she wasn't the only one. A few people turned around to look at Keith too. A large man in both height and girth shook his head, causing his long shaggy hair to rustle. He didn't dress formally, but if the gold medallion and heavy gold rings on his fingers were any indication he was wealthy. He shared a knowing look with a few other people at the table, one being the blonde woman. Ruby stared at her for a few seconds before she finally recognised the woman as Abigail, Midas' only daughter.

"Some people don't know when to cut their losses."

One of the other players looked at Keith and then back to the giant of a man. "He seems to be doing pretty well. I'd say he's winning, not losing."

Abigail tittered daintily as she tossed a few chips into the ever growing pile. "Oh dear Gaston, you really don't understand the fundamental logic of gambling. The house always wins; one way or another. If you can't comprehend that then you may want to go back to the little leagues. Not that you have the same resources that you used to, but I'm sure you could make do. "

There was some history there, because Gaston looked angry and more than a little put out. Midas wasn't exactly known for being generous with money. He wasn't exactly greedy, just very careful with where his money went. Gaston didn't understand that Midas was as good a business man as he was a gambler, and it was never good business to lose money.

Abigail placed her cards on the table and stood up. Ruby glanced away from Keith to take in the rest of the casino. She knew instantly what had caused the shift in Abigail's attention. There was no way it was a coincidence. Regina smirked at Ruby as she approached before being pulled into a hug by Abigail.

Regina was dressed for a night out. She wore a long black sleeveless dress with enough of a skirt to hide a gun or a knife. Despite the 'no weapons' policy, Ruby didn't doubt that Regina was at least partially armed.

"You're here! Good. Now, you know Tiny, right?"

Regina nodded at the giant of a man. "Yes, we've met before. It's nice to see you again, Tiny."

Tiny smiled at Regina. "You too. The Princess has been complaining about you ignoring her for the last month."

"I've been busy." Regina glanced at Abigail quickly. "Abigail knows that. Anyway, I came here to play some poker. Shall we?"

Regina sat next to Ruby and the table played out the rest of the hand. No one seemed annoyed at Regina's inclusions except Gaston, but he wisely didn't comment on it. Tiny won and pulled the chips towards himself as the dealer collected all the cards up and shuffled them. Ruby still kept her eyes mostly on Keith, but she couldn't help the few glances at Regina.

Regina had, not so surprisingly, a good poker face and she played a good game of poker. Living a life of lies and multiple identities was good practice for it.

Keith tossed all of his chips towards the man running the roulette wheel. He placed a single table chip on a number and laughed loudly. Abigail glanced at him and snickered. The wheel spun and Keith lost. He stared at the table for a few seconds before starting to yell at the man raking his chips away. Ruby threw her cards down on the table.

"I'm afraid that's my cue to leave."

Ruby made her way across the room and grabbed Keith's elbow as he raised a fist threateningly.

"Well, would you look at that? You have no money left. I guess we'd better get going then." She hissed in his ear.

"Not until I get my money back!"

"From a casino? Good luck with that. Unfortunately it's not going to happen while I'm here. I will drag you out if I have to. But I doubt it will come to that, Midas has already called some of his security to escort you out by the looks of it."

Keith glared at the two large men in suits heading towards them.

"Fine. Let's go."

Ruby saw the movement out of the corner of her eye.

Regina cleared the table in a single leap. Ruby had just enough time to raise her hands before Regina's arm wrapped around her chest and she pulled all three of them to the ground. Ruby's arms were useless in the end as they were pressed between her chest and Regina's shoulder. It happened quickly, but Ruby did not miss the unmistakable wet thud of a bullet piercing through flesh. By the time Regina pushed herself off of Ruby blood was already flowing down her arm from her shoulder. Regina gritted her teeth and pulled Ruby up with her good arm.

"Get your informant and get out of here."

"Regina…"

"Do it! I'll be fine, but the longer you wait the more likely your only link to Rumpelstiltskin will die."

"He's not worth it."

"Unlike you, I have back up."

Abigail appeared at Regina's side, peering carefully at the bullet wound.

"Frankenstein's been called and father has cleared out one of the back rooms for you. Come on Gina, we need to get that looked after."

"Don't call me that. What happened to the shooter?" Regina gritted out.

"Tink's on it. Agent Red, you are of course welcome to come back, but I suggest you leave now. Things only get more confusing after this and I doubt our shooter is alone."

Ruby gazed down at Regina. "Will you…"

"I'll live." Snapped Regina. "Now go. I didn't get shot for you to lose your man."

Ruby nodded and ran to Keith. She grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him outside to her car.

/-/-/-/

Keith had given up as much information as he had, and then he had been secreted away. Ruby was glad to be rid of him. She found out two days later that the would-be assassin never made it out of the casino. He had been gunned down, but by whom was still unknown. It didn't take a genius to figure it out though. After hurting Regina it would have taken a miracle for someone to get away from Tinker Bell.

Keith's information hadn't been much, but it had been something, which was more than the Agency had before. It was through Keith that Ruby found out that Belle had once been Rumpelstiltskin's prisoner before she was his lover. He now thought her to be dead because Regina told him she threw herself off a building. Someone had certainly died that day to convince Rumpelstiltskin that it was the truth, but it wasn't Belle. She had spent the next three years as Regina's prisoner, but neither Keith nor Rumpelstiltskin seemed to know that. Ruby was more interested in the sort of relationship Rumpelstiltskin and Regina had that he believed her about the only woman he had ever loved. It spoke of trust, or at least mutual respect and perhaps regular contact.

Maybe she'd ask the next time she ran into Regina, if there weren't more dire matters to take care of.

/-/-/-/

Jiminy Cricket had information about a series of arsons spreading out of Germany and throughout the rest of Europe. His clearance level had been greatly reduced and during the major rehaul of the Agency's computer system, he had been completely removed. Granny ensured Ruby that the proper steps had been taken to reduce the risk of betrayal. Ruby was still loath to trust him since Regina's revelation that he worked both sides of the fence.

The first arson case had been at the Gingerbread House. They were all very meticulous and with never a witness in sight. If it weren't for a slip up at the latest site resulting in a single witness, it was likely the Agency would never have picked up on it. The witness was a blind German lady. Here passport proved that she had been travelling Europe in vaguely the same path as the fires. It was a little too coincidental. Especially when Ruby found herself face to face with the blind woman she had interviewed all those months ago. Unfortunately there had been nothing but circumstantial evidence to hold Miss Patti Ginger and she had been let go. But the Agency kept a close eye on her and the trail of fires left in her wake. It was Ruby's job to follow Miss Ginger and try to find something incriminating, but Miss Ginger was good. Not once did she buy supplies herself. Everything appeared and disappeared through an endless supply of lackeys.

Ruby hadn't expected to run into Regina though. She had entertained the possibility that Regina was connected to Miss Ginger. It seemed likely that Miss Ginger was Regina's contact from the Gingerbread House. But that didn't mean that Ruby expected to find Regina sitting at the same restaurant that Miss Ginger frequented in Southern France.

"Ah, Miss Lucas. I see Ginger has attracted your attention." Regina said as Ruby slipped into the chair opposite her. "Shame really, she's been rather annoyed at you for a while, and she's not the sort of person you want to anger."

Regina stirred sugar into her tea. She delicately placed the spoon in her mouth to lick the excess tea off of it before placing it gently on the saucer. She picked the tea cup up with the same hand, her other one semi-immobilised by the sling meant to keep her shoulder still. The gunshot wound was still healing.

"What did I do to her? Wait, Ginger's her real name?"

"Yes, it is. Before you no one ever thought a blind woman could be a rather prolific arsonist so she didn't bother with an alias."

"That's why she's annoyed at me?" Ruby glanced over her shoulder at Miss Ginger. It wasn't the best view, but Regina had been at the table first.

"No. You interrupted our lunch meeting at the Ginger Bread House."

"So she was who you were meeting?"

"Yes and no. I was there to talk to her, but there was never any meeting. Anyway, unfortunately Ginger took your interruption as a reason to not join me in my latest business endeavour. Something she has come to regret, because it turned out quite profitable. Now she wants in and I have already filled the position I was offering her. An old friend freed her schedule for me and is having too much fun to quit now. As I'm sure you've figured out, Ginger is quite skilled with fires, and aside from you, who suspects the blind woman?"

A waiter walked past the table and subtly slipped a folded piece of paper under Regina's unused soup bowl. Regina read the note quickly and scrawled out a reply which was picked up by a different waiter just minutes later.

"If she's blind how does she read your notes?"

"She doesn't. They're taken into the back room where they are read to her over a secure communications link and then burned. It's very efficient and this isn't the only place she's set up like this. Hansel and Gretel used to be in her pocket. They should have known better than to let your Agency into her affairs. I suggest you deal with Ginger before she deals with you."

"Hansel and Gretel?"

Regina sipped from her tea cup and nodded. "You'd know them as Nicolas and Ava. I believe she blackmailed them with juvenile records. Petty theft and the like. I'm afraid our time together has come to an end, Miss Lucas. I really must be going."

Granny would chew her out for it, but Ruby didn't have the heart to arrest the woman who was healing from a gunshot wound taken to save her. Besides, no one had to know that Regina was even there.

/-/-/-/

Things quickly started to add up. Supplies moved to and from an apartment and all of Miss Ginger's lackeys visited it several times a week. Miss Ginger was the owner of the top three floors. Shortly after finding that out the Agency bought the next two down. They had well placed handy fire escapes that would provide excellent entry points to the top three levels. Miss Ginger was making a move and an overheard phone call meant that Ruby knew the day that Miss Ginger would survey her stock. All they needed to do was to catch her there. The supplies had all been tracked; every single item in the warehouse could be linked to Miss Ginger. Proving she was an arsonist would be harder, but was still doable. Especially with the excellent lawyers the Agency hired.

Ruby had a team ready to go at any given moment from the second she knew Miss Ginger would be making a visit to the apartment building. They had been briefed and most days were spent going over contingency plans.

Late into the evening Miss Ginger left her tiny hotel room for the apartment building. Ruby was on her phone seconds later, getting her people into the building before Miss Ginger got there. They would be in position on the fire escape, ready to rush in at a moment's notice. Ruby was set up in the back room of the 7-11 across the street. It had been the easiest and least assuming place. Agents could easily enter through the back dressed as delivery men and no one would question a thing. The Agency compensated the owner enough to ensure that he wouldn't say a word. But the Agency was not an organisation built on trust and his phone and home had been bugged for extra security.

Settled into the back of the shop by herself, Ruby gazed over the different video feeds on the laptop in front of her. They showed the positions of her people and who was entering and exiting the complex. Miss ginger had entered only moments ago.

Ruby knew the moment she was no longer alone in the room. The shop out the front had quieted down very quickly, unnaturally so.

"If I'd known you would do something stupid like this I never would have suggested that you deal with her. Falling for her trap will end in someone's death, and it won't be hers. You and your Agency are not untouchable and I fear you will learn that the hard way."

Ruby carefully closed her laptop and turned around. Standing behind her in the middle of the room was Regina, and further back, leaning against the door frame was Tinker Bell. Ruby just stared.

"What are you doing here, Regina? What am I meant to make of this?"

"I'm here to help you." Regina said softly.

"Bullshit. You have no reason to."

"I have every reason to." Regina snapped back. "And it's not the first time. I've saved your life before, Agent Red."

"But never just because it was me! You've always had another reason, something you get out of it. Something!"

She wasn't angry. That was the way their world worked. It was a game of give and take, win and lose, good and bad. Except no one was really good and Ruby had met very few people she considered bad. Regina was not one of them.

"It's always been because of you, even from the beginning. You were just another agent, one I didn't need to hurt, didn't want to hurt. I never meant for Quinn to die. But you're right. There were other things, bonuses I guess, there always are. You presented me with an opportunity to finally get back at those two idiots, but I did my best to make sure you weren't hurt in the crossfire."

"How do I know that I can trust you? You're the Evil Queen for god's sake! Whether you go by that name anymore or not, it doesn't stop you from being at the top of the Agency's most wanted list. I have spent my life trying to bring you down."

"I don't know what to say, Agent Red. But a lot of people could die today. I trusted you once, now please, trust me."

"When?"

"I didn't spare Snow White and Prince Charming because I forgave them, Agent Red. You were right; I would have become my mother. Who could have possibly loved me then?"

Ruby clenched her teeth together and just looked at Regina. Her hair wasn't perfect, and she wasn't wearing her normal heels. Regina had obviously run hard from wherever she was to get to Ruby. She meant it, she wasn't lying. There was no arrogance, no pride to hide what Regina was saying. And if Regina of all people could put aside her pride to offer Ruby help, then the least Ruby could do was accept it.

"Get everyone out of the building." Ruby said firmly into the com system. "The undercover agents as well. I don't care how, as long as no one else goes inside."

It was a long half hour wait before Ruby could confirm that everyone had been accounted for.

"What happens now, Regina? They're safe, but Ginger is still in there."

"I know. But I have a plan."

Regina stepped forward and rested her palm on Ruby's cheek. Her fingers curled behind Ruby's ear. She placed a gentle kiss on Ruby's lips. Their breath mingled as they stood still, their foreheads pressed together.

"I'm sorry, Ruby."

Regina took a step back, her finger hooking around Ruby's ear piece and ripping it away from her. She dropped it to the ground near Tinker Bell and the other woman crushed it beneath her heel.

"Regina! Whatever you're planning is a bad idea." Ruby said quickly, trying to stop Regina before she left the room.

"Probably, dear. But Ginger is not known for giving up or forgetting those who slight her. She will hunt you until someone dies. I intend to make sure it's her." Regina turned away. "Tink, you have your orders."

Ruby made to follow Regina as she left the room but Tinker Bell grabbed her and cuffed them together, one cuff around each of their wrists. Ruby yanked her wrist, earning a displeased grunt from Tinker Bell.

"You can't think this is a good idea."

"It's not my job to think. It's my job to kill people and follow orders. So sit down and shut up. I'm as happy about this as you are. But my orders are to keep you alive, if I have to beat you unconscious to do that I will."

"And if she dies?"

"She won't." Tinker Bell said firmly.

"But if she does, all you will have done is sat on your ass and watched. I don't know if Regina needs help, but on the off chance that she does, I want to be there."

"Why do you care about her? A year and a half ago you were trying to kill her for the death of your partner."

"She's not the Evil Queen anymore."

"That doesn't mean she's a good person."

"No. But that doesn't mean I want her to die. Don't let her pride be the death of her."

"It's not her pride I'm worried about. It's not her pride that has her risking her life for you. Again." Tinker Bell swore harshly and started to pace, dragging Ruby along with her.

"Fine. Fine. We'll do this your way. We'll make sure she doesn't die."

Ruby didn't get a chance to respond before Tinker Bell was pulling her out of the room and through the 7-11.

They were halfway across the street to the apartment building when the top five floors exploded in a fiery blast. Body parts and glass to fell down onto the street from where the windows had blown out.

If it wasn't pride, then what was it?


	8. Chapter 8

**Responses would be great, because I'm writing the squeal as we speak. Who do you want to see more of? Who do you want to see less of? Who do you just want to see at all?**

**Part Eight**

_No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for. ― Martin Luther King Jr._

Ruby had been on desk duty for the past nine months. She had seen more of her desk since meeting Regina than any other time in her life. Only this time it was her choice. She had been cleared for active duty only a few short days after the explosion in Ginger's apartment. She had nothing but slight bruising on her wrist from Tinker Bell tugging on the handcuffs too hard. She had been attempting to find Regina in the rubble of the apartment building. Ruby had passed the routine psych evaluation with flying colours because she had no other choice. Mourning the death of one of the world's most dangerous criminals would have resulted in being discharged from the Agency. Granny wouldn't have even been able to do anything about it.

There was only so much paper work for her to do though. As the months went on Ruby found herself in the basement punching and kicking one very unlucky punching bag. Mulan joined her sometimes, when she wasn't helping Sleeping Beauty with her physical therapy. She needed to build up the muscles she had lost after the three month coma Diablo had put her in. It was slow work, but Mulan was hopeful that Sleeping Beauty would be out on the field again soon. Sometimes Ruby helped Sleeping Beauty with her physical therapy when Mulan couldn't. She was a sweet girl with a wicked tongue that would get her into trouble one day. Hopefully Mulan will be there to bail her out. It seemed likely that the two would be assigned as partners once Sleeping Beauty was fit for duty.

The more time Ruby spent with the two of them the more she came to like Mulan and Sleeping Beauty. Ruby already knew that Mulan knew how to follow orders. But that didn't mean that she was so caught up in the chain of command that she couldn't think for herself. She just knew that a cohesive unit worked better than several people trying to do the same thing and getting under each other's feet. Both of them were loyal to the Agency because they believed in what they did, but they weren't like Snow White and Prince Charming. They were realistic about what they did, or in Sleeping Beauty's case, would do. There was no hero, no greater good, just doing the best you could against the rather large force that was the criminal underworld. Ruby never did find out why they had chosen their particular call names, though Mulan swore that she made a convincing man.

/-/-/-/

When Ruby entered Granny's office she knew straight away that something was wrong. She drew her side arm before she even started to process what was different. Cinderella was no longer sitting at her desk and there seemed to be no power in the whole room. A quick look revealed that Cinderella was tucked neatly into the space beneath her desk. She was breathing and aside from a nasty bump on her head and a crick in her neck from the awkward position she was in she would be fine.

Not a single light was on and Cinderella's computer was dark, not even the small red light under Cinderella's desk had escaped unharmed. Whoever had done this obviously knew what they were doing if they had disabled the silent alarm. Cinderella hadn't even gotten the chance to warn Granny. Gritting her teeth, and preparing to chew Granny out for her lack of security for the hundredth time, Ruby approached Granny's office. The door was shut and there didn't seem to be much in the way of noise coming from the other side. Ruby gently touched the door knob. The metal wasn't heated so there was no fire; and it turned as easily as it always did so there didn't seem to be any trap on the knob itself. With the door ajar Ruby looked up and found nothing waiting to fall on her. She had given up the element of surprise, but anyone who could infiltrate the Agency without raising an alarm deserved some caution.

Ruby shoved the door open and quickly skimmed the room. Granny sat at her desk, hands in front of her and an angry scowl on her face. A gun was pressed against her temple by a steady hand. Regina's hand.

"About time, dear. I was starting to think I had underestimated you. Do come in, take a seat."

"Yes, Agent Red. Do take a seat." Granny growled, her scowled deepening.

"You can dispense with the formalities, you know. We're all friends here."

Granny rolled her eyes.

"_Your friend_ was just telling me about all of the extra security we'd need to stop someone like her from getting into my office again." She said to Ruby

"How did you even get in here?"

"Window in the bathroom on this floor." Regina said vaguely gesturing in the direction of the bathroom.

"That's a tight squeeze."

Regina glared at Ruby, clearly offended. "Are you calling me fat?"

"Well, _I_ could have done it without trouble."

"I never said I had any trouble with it."

Their banter was an easy routine to fall back into. It was light hearted and made no promises or asked any probing questions.

But Regina was back from the dead, and it was likely for a very good reason.

Ruby slowly lowered her gun.

"We matched one of the corpses to your DNA. And Tinker Bell isn't that good of an actor. She was devastated when the apartment blew up."

"I'm aware. I got quite the lecture from her."

"You've been dead for over nine months, Regina."

"Well, obviously not, dear. I'm standing before you quite alive." Regina said, waving a hand down her body as if to prove her point.

"Why are you here? Why now?"

Regina pressed the muzzle of her gun harder against Granny's head

"I was offered fifty million dollars to kill Granny. Where else would I be?"

**The End**


End file.
